baliyum

Wow, 3+ months already?!

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:47:00 +0000

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog for months now. I was rather busy for the past few months though so I actually have a real excuse. Hehe. Now that I'm in US, I should be able to post more entries in this blog. So far I've been eating a lot of home cooking. Good stuff! I really miss having veggies and salads, something that I definitely don't get enough in Bali.

Quick Reviews - By the Docks (crab cakes) and Margaret Kuo (Chinese food)

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:06:00 +0000

I've been wanting to write up reviews for some the restaurants we went to while I was in US, but I'm lazy to write up full articles. Instead I'll just write a few short blurbs.

Ma, Ba, and I went to an outlet mall in Lancaster, PA to do some shopping, and for dinner they decided to drive all the way down to Baltimore, MD for crab cakes. Ba took us to one in Aberdeen a few years back which was pretty good, but fairly recently his colleagues recommend this place By the Dock Restaurant and Lounge (3321 Eastern Blvd, Middle River, Maryland 21220). This place was packed with people even around five in the afternoon. This place is famous for their crab cakes so we ordered two single crab cake dinner (one fried and one baked) and crab stuffed with shrimp platter. The waitress even suggested that I order the baked one for extra crab flavor (more crab meat and less filling) The dish came with baked potato, a gigantic crab cake, and salad. The portion was huuuuuuuuge! Even though we skipped lunch, we still couldn't finish all the crab cakes. The crab cakes were very flavorful and choke full of real, fresh crab meat. At around $16 per plate, it was a very good deal. I also ordered the French onion soup which was very hardy and very, very tasty, full of beefy, oniony, cheesy flavor. Definitely the best crab cakes in MD, and I loved it even though I'm generally not a fan of crabs.

My sister took us to Margaret Kuo's (175 E. Lancaster Ave. Wayne, PA), a very fancy Chinese restaurant, to celebrate her promotion at work. We ordered a bunch of dimsum and other Chinese snacks and well as sukiyaki from their upstairs Japanese section (The Akari Room). All the dishes were very well made and tasted very fresh. The dishes are like the refined version of snacks found in other Chinese restaurants. The sukiyaki consisted of lots of veggies, noodles, tofu, and thinly sliced Kobe beef. I noticed the cooking sauce was different compared to the ones I had before, and the waiter said the broth they used for the sauce is vegetable broth instead of bonito broth. All this tastiness came at a very high price, but it was well worth it considering the ambiance, the service, and the food were all top notch. I think we were treated extra well because we spoke Chinese. Haha. I was amused by a couple things in the restaurant. The gong was sounded to announce the arrival of Peking duck and the waiter carved the duck in front of the table who order the dish. We also had a very friendly chat with the manager (who is also a Taiwanese?) of the restaurant. She recommended the turnip cake, and when she found out my mom can make Chinese snacks (particularly the turnip cake), she asked for the recipe.

Too bad Wid missed both the awesome crab cakes and the Kobe beef sukiyaki because he had to go back to Bali early.

Beef Ribs at Warisan

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:08:00 +0000

The four of us (Wid, his bro, bro's wife, and I) went to Warisan to check out their beef ribs after we heard good things about this dish. We ordered the three person portion of the dish which came with 1.75 kg Black Angus beef ribs, salad, and French fries. We also ordered the French onion soup, warm shredded duck salad, a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, dessert platter, and some sort of cold vegetarian lasagna with balsamic vinaigrette which turned out to be a salad layered with flat noodles (looked like wonton skin to me). The onion soup was all right (I had better, like the one from By the Docks in Maryland) but I think their garlic soup is still much better. Too bad the garlic soup isn't in their regular menu anymore.

The main even was the beef ribs and they were wonderful!! I have to say it's the best beef I had in Bali so far. The meat was tender, juicy, and very flavorful, both smoky and beefy. The raw material itself was high quality and the chef did an excellent job of cooking the meat. The red wine complemented the meat perfectly. I also thought they did an excellent job of cooking the French fries. The desserts were great as usual and it's always good to end a meal on a high note.

The meal for the four of us ended up costing around 2 million rp. Most of the cost came from the beef (990,000 rp) and the wine (440,000 rp), but it was well worth the price because we had an excellent time and the food was fantastic. This meal was definitely much better than my previous experience at Warisan (they ran out of duck confit and the duck dish I ended up ordering was so salty that I couldn't eat it). I still don't know what happened with the previous time because all the other times we've been to Warisan, we had really excellent food.

I told Wid's dad about our experience and now he wants to try the beef. Hehe.

Maranatha

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:30:00 +0000

For future reference:

Maranatha
Jl. Gatot Subroto No. 100 Ka(?) 3
Denpasar, Bali

Tel: 0361-236337

Excellent pao/bao place. I ate the mung bean one and Bonnie was eyeing the pao the whole time. Silly doggie, buns aren't for dogs.

Review - Cafe Marzano

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:57:00 +0000

Out of curiosity Wid and I checked out Cafe Marzano (Jl. Kunli No. 7, Seminyak, Kuta) about a week ago and we went back again just a few days ago. The inside reminded us of Cafe Felix in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Most of the clients were Italians or foreigners, and we kept seeing boxes of pizza ordered for delivery or to go, which looked like a good sign.

The first time we ordered pizza, seafood pasta, bruschetta, fresh apple juice, and coke. Out of all the Italian places we tried in Bali, this place has the best pizza. The thin-crust pizza is crispy (well, first one the crust was a bit wet probably because it was baked first before the pasta was done) and loaded with generous amount of cheese, sauce, and toppings. The flavor reminded me of pizzas from family pizzerias in US. What makes this pizza better than the rest is the quantity and quality of the cheese. According to Wid's brother, the cheese and Italian meats (pepperoni and ham) are imported from Italy. Unlike the other pizza here, it's rich and a bit oily but not greasy.

The seafood pasta was excellent also. This is the first time in Bali I had pasta that's actually cooked perfectly al dente. The seafood sauce was fresh and bright. We're really impressed by the fact that the food is not complicated or overly fancy yet very flavorful. As for the bruschetta, I really like the home made bread they used, but the sauce was a bit on the dry side. I think this was the weakest dish we tried out so far.

The pizza was so good that we went back a few days later and ordered another pizza. This time paired with the house white wine, it was made the pizza better. The white wine (I guess it was pinot grigio) really enhanced the flavor of the pizza, especially the cheese and green and red pepper, by adding a note of fruit flavor. Plus the wine help cut through the oily taste of the pizza. For dessert we ordered a small nutella pizza which did not disappoint us. Again, the crust was thin and crispy and it's loaded with lots of nutella, fresh whipped cream, and chocolate sprinkles.

Depending on what you ordered, the food is a tad more expensive than places like Warung Italia or Massimo, but the price is still very reasonable. Appetizers are between 25,000 rp to 40,000 rp. Pasta and other main courses run from around 20,000 to 42,000 rp. Pizza from 25,000 rp to 60,000 rp. Overall, we are very impressed by the pizza and pasta and I hope to check out other items on their menu soon.

American Cheesecake Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:21:00 +0000

I've always been a big fan of cheesecake, but while I've made some pretty tasty cheesecakes, I've never been 100% successful. My cakes ended up cracked or the texture too dense. After making a bunch of Japanese cheesecakes and finally having a good oven, I turned my attention back to American cheesecake once again. I tried the chocolate swirl cheesecake recipe found in Better Homes and Gardens' Old-Fashioned Home Baking but with a few minor changes. Instead of 24 oz (680 g) of softened cream cheese, I only had 670 g of cheese instead. I also use 1.5 cup of Oreo crumbs with about 2 tablespoons of melted butter as the crust. The springform pan was 9".

With a hand mixer I mixed cream cheese, imported fine granulated sugar, vanilla, and all purpose flour together until the ingredients were well combined. Then, I added two eggs and a yolk to the mixture and, again using the hand mixer, beat the mixture until just till combined. The mixture was actually still a bit chunky but I switched to my wooden spoon to finish the mixing. After the milk was added, I split the batter in half and added the melted chocolate to one half. I poured all the batter into the pan, made swirls using a small spatula, and placed the cake in the oven.

The starting temperature was 375 but it dropped down to around 350 when the cake was in the oven. I noticed that oil (butter in the crust?) kept dripping out of the springform pan. Thank goodness I placed a cookie sheet under the springform pan. I let the cake bake for around 35 minutes before I checked it. I finally took the cake out around 45-50 minutes when tiny cracks started to appear. I think I could have taken the cake out around 40-45 minutes instead. I let the cake cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes before I ran my knife around the edge of the cake. I then let the cake cool for another 30 minutes before taking the pan off the cake. I chilled the cake in the fridge overnight after the cake completely cooled on the counter.

The cake received very favorable comments from Wid's parents and Wid. It's surprising because Wid isn't a fan of American cheesecake yet he liked the one I made this time. The cook's sister who's the baker of the family said she likes the swirly pattern. Overall the cake had really good flavor and texture. It's not as fluffy as the ones from Cheesecake Factory, but the texture is still very cheesecake-like. The sweetness is just right for everyone. The edge of the cake was really brown so next time I'll have to remember to use more crumbs and build the crust up about an inch.

Now I'm tempted to try new cheesecake recipe though using 24 oz of cheese at a time is rather scary. Hehe.

Katsudon

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:13:00 +0000

I can't believe I have never made katsudon until last week. The in laws looooooved it! The sauce, similar to the one for donburi, was perfect with the pork. Mami said it tasted even better than the Ryoshi version though my dish still isn't as good as the one from Hana. Next time I should get some Japanese or Chinese short grain rice instead of the local rice we normally eat. I'm not sure why the pork was tougher than usual, but at least the flavor was still good. I also want to add a bit of shredded nori and the red pickled ginger for extra taste and color.

Various Experiments

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:01:00 +0000

Here are some experiments from the past few months. I've never bothered to post them before because I was lazy.

I made the orange sponge cake and the Japanese cheesecake the same day for Wid's mom, if I remember correctly. The Japanese cheesecake turned out well as usual, but the orange sponge cake didn't because about 3/4 way into baking the gas ran out so the temperature dropped. The volume wasn't as good as before, but it did pass the upside down test. The cake tasted good and it was still moist and fluffy. Here is the original post about the two cakes.

I tried a recipe from the The New Best Recipe. The cake had a wonderful buttery taste, but it was rather compact. It had a more biscuit texture than cake texture. I don't know why it didn't raise like a normal cake. Maybe the baking power wasn't potent enough. The frosting was pretty much whipped melted chocolate and heavy cream; it tasted very decadent!

Gratin Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:27:00 +0000

Wid and I tried some potato gratin from Carrefour a few weeks ago and it was horrible. It was pretty tasteless and I don't know why it was so soupy instead of creamy. I decided to try making my own gratin/scalloped potato instead. I checked out a bunch of recipes but I couldn't find something exactly what I was looking for so in the end I ended up improvising. I cooked the thinly slice potatoes (about half kilo) in half milk, half water solution flavored with bay leaf and salt. I then cooked minced garlic and finely chopped onion in butter and olive oil. After I drained the cooked potato, I line a buttered 9" square pan with potato, then onion, salt/pepper/nutmeg, and then cheddar cheese. I repeat the process and then pour half of cup of milk and heavy cream mixture. I baked the dish covered at 375 F for 30 minutes and then sprinkle about quarter cup of parmasean cheese and let the dish cook for about another 30 minutes.

The result was a bit too dry and peppery to me. I also didn't like the tough crust, and the dish was a bit too thin. Next time I'll add more cream/milk and double the amount of potatoes. I'll also add less parmasean cheese. At least the potato itself tasted really good and well cooked thanks to the step where I cooked the potato in milk. Mami and Wid really liked the dish, but I'll make it better next time.

Interesting Sounding Book

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Found the listing for the book On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (ISBN 0684843285). I already have the book The New Best Recipe that Joyce gave me, which does a pretty good job on explaining how to cook better, but the other book looks pretty interesting also, especially one of the chapters is about "basic chemistry." I'm rather curious about the more scientific aspect of cooking and baking, and if I know more about the chemistry then perhaps I can improve my cooking skills.

When I was traveling to US, I ended up buying two food books at the Hong Kong airport. One is about Taiwanese tea which is for research purposes. One of these days I want to find the classic 茶經 by 陸羽. The other one is about starting a beef noodle soup shop. I don't care too much about the business aspect of a beef noodle soup shop, but it is still a pretty interesting read. I'm actually more keen about the recipes and learn more about the variety of Taiwanese beef noodle soup.

Fresh - Review

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:38:00 +0000

We checked out yet another Japanese (well, Japanese-fusion) restaurant a week back. This time it's Fresh in Kerobokan. According to some site, the restaurant is owned by the manager of the now defunct Wasabi. Most of the menu items were rolls so we ordered a bunch of rolls. Sadly, I have to say the Fresh isn't so fresh because the fish in the sushi tasted a bit fishy and mushy. Our friend, who is a big fan of sushi, was not too impressed with the craftmanship either because grains of rice were exposed at the edges where the nori comes together. Wid was not too impressed with the sushi rice. Wid did like the sauce they used to make the spicy tuna. The only roll that I really liked and thought was very interesting was the mushroom and eggplant one. Maybe the reason is it did not contain fish. Price was a bit pricey but not too horribly over priced like certain places in that area.

Of all the Japanese restaurants we've tried so far in Bali, here is a list of our favorites. Right now the best fusion style sushi is found at Lanai's fairly new sushi bar. Supposedly the chef who used to be at Wasabi is currently working there. Best traditional sushi with excellent sushi rice and fresh fish is still Hana. Our Japanese friend approved of this place, and he said it is the best place for sushi. Last but not least, place with best value sushi (good combination of taste and price) is still Ryoshi.

The ambiance was quite nice and the waiters were quite helpful and friendly. The parking lot, which can only accommodate two cars if they pulled out the flag poles, is too small.

Happ New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:46:00 +0000

Happy New Year to my friends, who are the only people who actually occasionally read this blog. Haha. Oops, I haven't updated this blog for over two months. Hopefully I'll post more in 2008. I was in US for Thanksgiving and I still have a couple of restaurant reviews (fancy Chinese restaurant and a crab cake place) to write up from the trip.

Thanksgiving wasn't as awesome as it could have been because of family emergency, but it was still great spending time with my immediate family and eat my mom's cooking. We were supposed to have a big dinner with the entire extended family but because of the emergency, we stayed home and my mom improvised to provide a feast with stuff in the fridge. One of the dishes she made was salmon sushi and we also ordered a Peking duck from our favorite Chinese restaurant Golden City. The sushi and duck combo was actually a bit of an inside joke because our cousin's fiance and his mom were supposed to join the entire clan for Thanksgiving and the fiance (not Asian) freaked out his mom by telling her that Chinese people eat sushi and Peking duck for Thanksgiving. I think they ended up bringing a Cajun-style deep-fried turkey, but we didn't see it because we weren't there.

Lanai Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:38:00 +0000

Wid and I haven't frequented Lanai as much as we wanted to, but a few weeks ago our friend Lexo and Sulis, who first introduced us to the restaurant, told us that Lanai just opened up a sushi bar. We decided to check out the place once more. The sushi was surprisingly good and rumor has it the chef is originally from the now closed Japan-fusion restaurant Wasabi. We tried a couple of different rolls as well as items for the regular menu. We had the spicy tuna roll, Lanai special roll, and salmon skin roll. There might have been another roll we ordered, but at this point I don't remember. The rolls were surprisingly good and my favorite was the spicy tuna roll. For Japanese-fusion, the new sushi bar is very nice, but I think the best rolls are still found at Hana. I will have to write a proper review of the rolls later after I sample them again. Hehehe.

Next day we took Wid's family there and everyone really enjoyed the food there. Wid's mom complained about the price, but I guess she doesn't realized exactly how much food we all ate, which was a lot. We can safely say now that the food at Lanai is just as good as pre-fire. Unfortunately, no more salmon risotto, but many of the really good dishes are still on the menu, like the seared ahi tuna covered with sesame and served with wasabi mayo and green beans and seafood boullibaise. Wid tried their special of the day, which was steak sandwich with coffee-infused mushroom. It sounded odd, but the coffee actually gave another dimension to the dish. While you can taste a hint of coffee, it really doesn't distract you from the taste of the meat and the rest of the sandwich. I guess the concept is similar to that of using cocoa in chicken mole. For dessert, white chocolate mousse is always a crowd pleaser, or at least Wid loves it.

New Japanese Restaurant

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:27:00 +0000

Wid just found out that a sushi conveyor belt place has just opened in Bali. We actually past by it tonight when we were heading to Galleria to watch The Simpsons Movies. It's on the same road as Carrefore, by the Sunset Road Food Court. The place looked huge from the outside. We'll have to check out it soon and I'll post my review here.

Speaking of conveyor belt sushi, so far the best place we've been to in Indonesia is actually in Jakarta. It's Kaiten Sushi in Mal Kelapa Gading. Funny thing we noticed was in Jakarta salmon is cheaper than tuna, which is the opposite of Bali. Tuna here is quite reasonably priced but salmon is so expensive.

Gonta (restaurant review)

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:57:00 +0000

Last night Wid and I checked out a new restaurant that we heard from one of Wid's distant relations. We actually wanted to try it out last week but we were in the mood for something lighter, like sushi. Gonta is located right next to Hardy's Sanur. It was about a five minute walk from Ryoshi, but unlike Ryoshi, Gonta served mostly noodle dishes. The main selling point of the restaurant was, according to the glossy brouschure, “Real Japanese cuisine, by real Japanese.”

The place was tiny but tastefully decorated and uncluttered. The place reminded me of being at someone’s house except there’s a tiny counter/bar. All the cooking was done behind the counter and since we were sitting at the counter, it was really interesting to see the cook at work. I was amazed by the big pots of broth, and I liked the idea of having a faucet right where the pot for cooking noodles was located. The man cooking was an old Japanese guy, and he was very efficient and seemed friendly enough. We couldn’t communicate with him since he only knew Japanese and maybe a tiny bit of Indonesian. The head waitress did most of the translation for him and chatted with us. She asked me where I was from and stuff. Hehe.

We ordered shoyu ramen, shio ramen, and gyoza because they looked like the shop’s signature dishes. Wid asked for agadashi tofu, but they didn’t have that dish. Instead the cook recommended cold tofu salad (hiyayakko?) which consisted of a block of tofu with grated ginger, scallion, and soy sauce. The tofu salad was similar to the version that I learned to make from my mom, and even though this dish had fewer ingredients, it was surprisingly tasty. Wid really liked the slightly bouncy and porous texture of the tofu, which is different from most of the tofu found here. The taste of the tofu with the toppings was quite good.

The dishes were prepared and served very quickly. The ramen dishes were surprisingly light yet full of flavor. Compared to the Ippin Nyukkon ramen, the flavor was different and lighter, but from the taste and the consistency of the soup, you could still tell the broth isn’t just dashi stock plus soy sauce. Both dishes had half a soft boiled egg, a sheet of nori, scallion, wakame, bamboo slices, and a piece of boiled pork. The noodles themselves were very fresh and flavorful. One interesting thing to note was they seasoned the dish with generous amount of cracked black pepper, something not seen at Ippin Nyukkon. The ramen was very filling, and it was very nice to wash down the rich broth with some hot green tea. We also had the gyoza which was full of vegetable and pork.

The service was excellent. Everyone working in the restaurant was very friendly and attentive. Food was prepared and served really fast and we didn’t wait long to get our check either. With the two of us, the bill came to around 120,000 Rp. I guess not a bad price considering we had two bowls of ramen, a plate of gyoza, green tea, and tofu salad. Unfortunately, they didn’t have dessert (maybe I should sell them my Japanese cheesecake, hahah) but they had a nice variety of booze, which we didn't partake.

The ramen dishes we tried are on par with the Ippin Nyukkon ramen, and both these restaurants are clearly superior to the Ida Bagus ramen place. The price is decent and I wouldn’t mind going back there again.

Sloppy Joe

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:41:00 +0000

We had some leftover hamburger buns that I bought last Friday from Bali Bakery. Instead of making burgers, I decided to try sloppy joe, which I've never attempt to try in the past. I looked online and found a recipe, but then all the reviews of that recipe kept changing things. In the end I just took the list of ingredient and made something up myself.

I browned the beef, chopped green pepper, and chopped onions in the pan. I then added quite a bit of ketchup. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of ketchup for 1 lb of meat, but I thought that was too much and possibly had too much ketchup flavor. Luckily I found some old BBQ sauce (2004!!!) and dumped it into the pan. I also added some yellow mustard, some red wine vinegar, water, a tiny bit of salt, and black pepper. While the sauce was simmering, I dealt with the roasted potato in the oven.

I spooned the sloppy joe mixture onto freshly toasted buns and served them to the family. Everyone really liked the smell and the flavor. I think Wid's dad was planning to eat only half of it, but then he took the other half and ate that as well. The hamburger buns were surprisingly good. I think it's the best bun I've tasted in Bali so far. The roasted potato was a hit once again. Maybe next time I'll melt a slice of cheese on top of the sloppy joe mixture.

I will definitely try this dish again since it's so easy and many of the ingredients are found right in the fridge.

Tale of Three Sponge Cakes

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 14:19:00 +0000

Last Thursday I wanted to make the orange sponge cake for my language teacher's birthday. I was fairly successful in my previous attempt. Wid's dad loved it and so did Bonnie the dog who hates oranges. I thought it would be easy to make the cake, and I did everything perfectly until the very end when I took the cake out of the oven. When I inverted the cake to cool, it plopped onto the counter. I guess the 1 hour cooking time as suggested by the cookbook wasn't long to cook the cake completely. I immediately figured out possible sources of problems: oven temperature wasn't high enough, I'm just not quite used to new oven yet, and the pan was too small (it was around 9.5" instead of 10" tube pan).

Since it was so heart breaking to see my cake failed so spectacularly like that, I was determined to try again as soon as possible. My chance came pretty quickly because Wid's mom wanted me to bake a cake for Wid's brother's birthday. She wanted a Japanese cheesecake, which I made, but I decided to make the sponge cake also. This time I used the same pan and recipe except at the end, I took out enough batter to make six cupcakes. The cupcakes were done in about 40 minutes. The cake was in the oven for one hour and 20 minutes. I think the cake might have been done around one hour and 10 minutes, but in the end the cake passed the upside down test and was cooled over night at room temperature.

The cupcakes cooked quickly so I put it in the living room. Wid's dad asked for one, scarfed it down really quickly, and asked for another one immediately. It's pretty cute because of he was so enthusiastic and happy about eating the cake. He said it tasted like a traditional cake (I guess it's similar in taste and texture of a madeline-like cake that's available here) and he liked the cake because it doesn't have a tough/hard crust. This makes the third cake to met his seal of approval. Wid and I ate two of the cupcakes for snack later in the night and in the morning Wid's dad ate another cupcake.

When we brought the two cakes to the birthday lunch, the orange cake was gone the first, followed by my cheesecake (a crowd pleaser usually), and then Wid's sis's (failed) cheese and carrot cake. The orange sponge cake was light and fluffy like before. It wasn't as wet as before but the level of the moisture in this cake was perfect. The crust stayed mostly intact as well, unlike the first cake, because it was taken out of the pan after it was cooled completely. Plus this time no complaints about the cake being under done. For some reason Indonesians think cakes should be oily or bone dry. Overall, I'm very happy my cakes turned out well. Now I'm tempted to try the cheese carrot cake challenge that Wid's mom proposed.

Mmmmmmm Mangoes

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:14:00 +0000

One of the advantages of living on a tropical island--mangoes, lots of them

I still think it's crazy how well the guys working at our house can climb.

New Oven

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:50:00 +0000

We finally got a brand new, non-industrial-strength oven. It's a Modena gas power oven, the same one owned by Wid's sis. It's nice and compact so it doesn't take over an hour to heat up the oven and the temperature actually remains more or less constant, unlike the other oven with the horrible temperature fluctuations of around 50 degrees Celsius. Plus the oven has the following features, which were totally absent in the other one: electronic ignition, safety valves, oven light, thermostat, timer. Ah, wonder of modern convenience. XD The only thing I'm not so keen is the temperature dial because the intervals were too great for my taste.

I was able to do a test run yesterday. I was curious about how well the oven heats up and how accurate was the thermostat so I put my brand new oven thermometer that I bought in US last year in the oven. There was a huge difference in difference in value between the setting of the dial and the temperature read by the oven thermometer. Since I never tested the oven thermometer, I wasn't sure which one is accurate. In the end I decided the oven temperature was lower than it should because the cake I was baking didn't turn golden brown after sitting in the oven for an hour. At least in the end the long baking time and lower oven temperature didn't have a disasterous effect on the cake (it was edible).

Maybe we should get the electrician to come back and recalibrate the oven or I'll just keep using the oven thermometer. At least once the oven reached a set temperature, the temperature remains constant which is one plus over the old oven.

Review - Blossom in Seminyak

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 03:21:00 +0000

This weekend the four of us checked out a new Thai (more like Thai-fusion) restaurant called Blossom, located in Villas Sentosa in Seminyak. I predicted that we would have an expensive night and I was proven correctly. The restaurant was nicely decorated with lots of wood, stone, concrete, and bird cage lamps. My friends who own a light shop were jokingly saying that they spent all the money on the wooden ceiling that they can't afford to get expensive lamps. The seats were quite comfortable. Overall the style of the restaurant (and I'm assuming the rest of the villa complex) was modern and posh looking. Most of the clients were white people except for us and a couple of Asians here and there. We wondered if the people are the restaurant were all guests of the villa.

For drinks we had lemon-orange squash, beer, and pineapple and apple drink. The drinks were nice. For food we ordered five things: a beef salad, crispy Szechwan chicken, black pepper beef with snow pea, green beans, shiitaki mushroom, onions, and pepper, pad thai, and stir-fry squid dish. Rice didn't come with the dishes so we ordered those separately (3). I don't know why but the waitress brought out the rice when she served the salad even though we wanted everything to come out at once since we were eating family-style. She said something about how rice would get cold on the plate, which is odd considering we all know how to keep rice warm.

All the dishes were surprisingly good and spicy. Bonus points for keeping the raw bean sprouts on the side for the pad thai because two of our group can't eat raw sprouts. Pad thai tasted appropriately pad thai with good amount of meat, tofu, and sauce. The squid was surprisingly soft and you can break apart the meat with a slight stroke of the fork. The crispy chicken with a bit of the dipping salt was excellent. Most of the chicken was juicy and the skin crispy. The beef dish would have been better if they actually had more beef. We had trouble finding the beef among all the vegetables. The menu advertised the dish as having shiitaki mushroom but the actual dish didn't have shiitaki; instead, it was "wooden ear." At least the change in mushroom didn't make the dish taste bad or anything. The very dim candle light did not help our cause either. The taste of the dish was spicy and delicious. The beef was surprisingly tender and juicy, but minus points for not having enough beef.

Overall we were quite surprised by the quality of the food, but we had a huge sticker shock when the bill arrived. 840,000 Rp for four of us and only five relatively small dishes (four dishes and one salad). Just as shocking was the 15,000 Rp/rice. Rice should NOT cost that much in Bali. Beef, chicken, and the squid were all around 120,000 to 150,000 each, and the beef dish was definitely not worth that much considering how little beef was there. The drinks were around 30,000 to 50,000 Rp each. With that kind of price, I rather go to Warisan.

I liked the food, but the price is a big turn off. I don't know how they justify the price because most ingredients for Thai food shouldn't be super expensive. I can see the beef being expensive especially if it's imported, but as I said many times already, there wasn't enough beef in the dishes to justify the price of the dish. The service was all right but nothing spectacular. Compound that with seeing the chef or manager fawning over the next table over the entire time while ignoring rest of the guests, it just didn't seem very cool.

As I have said in the past, I don't mind spending money on good food, but the value seemed lacking in this case. A common symptom I see with many of the new restaurants in the Seminyak area.

Mmmm 90 years old booze

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:29:00 +0000

A fun and food-related article from the BBS. Farmer at a remote village in Macedonia dug up bottles of what thought to be vintage cognac from World War I.

This is certain more interesting than the cases of 1930s Bordeaux that we had during the wines class at Cornell.

Fire Update

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:19:00 +0000

I mentioned a while back about a fire that burned down one of the biggest markets in Denpasar. Our favorite Chinese-Indonesian restaurant was located in that complex, and we thought we'll never taste the goodness of Ma Fong Sen (aka Honey's Restaurant). Then, we found out from one of Mami's relatives that the restaurant survived the fire and in fact it's still open! We ordered take out last night, and the food was as delicious as before. All the dishes are still there and they tasted just the same as pre-fire. Yay, so happy!

Kowloon (Review)

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:47:00 +0000

Last night we checked out the new Cantonese-style seafood restaurant Kowloon (Jl. Raya Puputan Renon, Duta Wijaya No. 15-19 in Denpasar) which is partially owned by the cook who formerly worked at Bandar Seafood. Our friend Lexo is a friend of the cook Mr. Yip so we received a special invite for food tasting. I do not know if the menu we had was a special menu or the dishes are part of the normal menu, but it was fantastic. The starter was seafood and tofu soup and while I'm not a fan of squids and similar seafood, the soup was great. It was light yet full of flavors and the seafood and the tofu were perfectly cooked. The seafood remained tender while the tofu kept its form. Wid said that you're not a Hong Kong chef if you can't cook tofu. Hehe.

I also liked the addition of nori seaweed which gave the soup an extra flavor dimension. First surprise of the night was green bean. It wasn't any ordinary green bean. It was coated with deep-fried, spiced flour coating and mixed with cabbage and other things. It was spicy but not hot. The black pepper beef was good but not spectacular like the rest of the menu. Fish in a sweet and sour sauce was nice. The fish was tender and juicy. The stuffed chicken (with mushroom, carrots, etc.)with steamed broccoli was excellent. The crayfish deep-fried had a good flavor but the cray fish was tiny so it was hard to pick out all the meats. A turtle dish was also on the menu, but I didn't have any of it since I feel bad for the turtle.

The bit surprise of the night for me (and probably no one else) was the last vegetable dish. When it first came out, I thought it looked very familiar and I had a feeling that it was my favorite vegetable in the whole wide world. I have given up looking for it here. When I tasted the dish, I immediately knew I was right--it was 絲瓜 (loofah). Honey said that she's found the gourd in the local supermarket Tiara so now I'll be hunting this vegetable down. Now I just need to find its Indonesian name. The 絲瓜 was stir-fried with soy sauce and garlic, and it just tasted heavenly.

The service was quite good, and the food came out surprisingly fast. I think we spent more time waiting for our friends to show up than eating. I was surprised that the food didn't taste anything like the menu at Bandar Seafood, but it really shows Mr. Yip's versatility. This is definitely the best Cantonese food in Bali, and I have a feeling we'll be frequenting this place very regularly.

Not more fires!

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Sun, 06 May 2007 08:57:00 +0000

We have guests visiting us right now and we wanted to take them to Mafongsun aka Honey's, which is our favorite Indonesian-Chinese food place. This place was more like a large food stall rather than a real restaurant. The formerly green colored walls were covered with soot and grease. The place looked like a dive but the food was great and no one we've known ever gotten sick from the food here. Our friend from Hong Kong who is quite picky when it comes to Chinese food highly approved of this place when we took him and his wife to the place. We decided to take our friends are Cantonese to this place. Unfortunately, that morning of our planned trip, the market which housed this restaurant burned down. Just our luck! It took about twelve hours for the firemen to put out the fire. I wonder what's going to happen to the people who ran the restaurant as well as all the occupants of the market. This market was huge and I feel sorry for all the people who had their shops there.

I don't think the authority knows the cause of the fire. Maybe it's an accident or maybe it's arson. Wid said that there were disputes about the land which the market was located. Something about wanting to turn the place into the parking lot. I guess we'll know when people decide what to do with the land.

It's really ironic considering the last time we planned to take some people to a new place, the exact same thing happened. I hope we're not cursed or anything.

Other Eats in Perth

noreply@blogger.com (cyen) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:27:00 +0000

For future reference. They're suggestions from my friend, and unfortunately we weren't able to make it for this trip.

Fremantle on Sunday morning to the fish market for fish and chips
In Northbridge Hog's Breath Cafe for the steak (interesting note is that others have recommended going to a pub for steak)
Italian restaurant Ciao Italia in South Perth. Must try pizza and go early because the place is always packed.
Corica in Northbridge has awesome apple strudels
Seoul at William Street, Northbridge with awesome bbq