a mouthful of dumplings

There's a small restaurant in a local-traffic-only street, opposite a university in Beijing that makes delicious dumplings. The restaurant itself is not particularly famous or outstanding, it's a dependable local restaurant serving food to mostly local residents and students, of which I was one such student. I bought a lot of takeaways from this restaurant. I vaguely remember a fried tofu dish with its crispy crunchy skin and its silky smooth tofu innards that was heavenly. But what I will never forget is their jiǎozi (dumplings, 饺子).

a hong kong interlude

Walking up and down the small streets not far off busy Nathan Road, I was pelted with icy rain from all directions. I was not dressed for the weather, on my feet were a pair of flimsy flats that quickly absorbed the muddy water. The pair of jeans I wore was slightly longer and was dragging on said muddy water. I repeat, I was not dressed for the weather.

malang, an unfinished list

Mount Arjuna-Welirang in the background

Did you know the word malang in bahasa indonesia means poor, wretched, unlucky? If so, why would anyone want to visit a city called Malang?

pangsit mie a fuk, dine in or takeaway?

I can honestly say that this was my first time eating in an underground carpark of a Buddhist temple.

angsle, savings for a rainy day

I must admit, I was a scrawny little kid when I was young. Getting me to eat anything, be it during meal time or snack time, was a task. It's actually quite astonishing when I think about how much I love food now, so much so that I had to start my own food blog to channel it all. But, my preference will always be more with the savouries.

depot mie sawahan nasi goreng mawut

Nasi goreng mawut - Rp 18,000

If find it quite an interesting process researching the origins of indonesian dishes. Most of the time, the dishes will have a wikipedia entry showing extensive history of how it was created or how it was introduced to indonesia. Other times, when the dish is not very well known internationally, it will have articles in bahasa indonesia. But a small portion of the time, my search would come up with blanks, zilch, nada.

bubur ayam agus, breakfast food for dinner

A warming bowl of bubur (porridge or congee), to me, is the ultimate comfort food. I associate porridge with those times when I'm sick, when my palate and my stomach couldn't handle anything more than the soft and comforting slurry of rice going down my aching throat and warming my stomach.

pastel tutup malang

Pastel tutup, for all intents and purposes, is the indonesian version of a shepherd's pie. Like the english pie, pastel tutup is a meat pie with a potato crust topping. But that is where the similarities end. Unlike an english shepherd's pie, which can be heavy or even fatty depending on what type of meat mince used, pastel tutup's filling is light and a joy to eat.

depot mie gadjah mada, noodles with soul

Homemade noodles & wontons, freshly made every day

The first restaurant I went to when I visited Malang, East Java after a long 5 years away was Depot Mie Gajah Mada. And there's a good reason for it.

eat & eat durian ice cream

The pictures on this post are somewhat saturated and one is a bit blurry, I took them with the camera on a nokia phone, and it's not the smart kind. Yes, you can laugh at me for having a nokia phone. I'm giving you permission to pretend that these photos have gone through instagram's "lord kelvin" filter.

swikee gris kodok goreng tepung

Kodok goreng tepung - Rp 19,000

Disclaimer: these are not fried chicken drumsticks.

pelangi bali crab fried rice

The trouble with living somewhere other than where you grew up is that you'd go through periods where you'd miss a certain type of food so intensely that you cannot think of anything else but.

chinese tomatoes & eggs 西红柿炒蛋

When my older sister introduced me to the deliciousness of chinese tomatoes & eggs half a year ago, it fast became one of my go-to meals when I’ve got nothing in the fridge.

royal seafood dim sum

Shrimp dumplings
(traditional chinese: 蝦餃, pinyin: xiā jiǎo, jyutping: haa1 gaau2)

I don't have dim sum nearly as much as I'd like to. Maybe it's something to do with feeling like a bit of a glutton every time I do. It's a vicious cycle actually. As I don't go that often, I would almost always order one too many dishes. Let’s have that extra dish of siumai and please let me have another dish of prawn dumplings. This would invariably lead to the gluttony in the first place. I'm convinced that having all the enticing dishes carted around in the restaurant doesn't help my cause either.

speechless sunday

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! Let us all hop steadily to a prosperous and better new year.

God of prosperity (traditional chinese: 財神, pinyin: cáishén)

Carrying a sign saying congratulations and be prosperous, synonymous with happy new year (traditional chinese: 恭喜發財, pinyin: gōng xǐ fā cái)

A toy form of the same god

2011 is the Year of the Rabbit

More rabbit decorations

A statue of a rabbit with a dragon
The writing means may you be safe wherever you are (simplified chinese: 出入平安, pinyin: chū rù píng ān)

Wing Loong News & Books

Dragon heads decoration

hawker's cuisine sambal kang kong

I have actually blogged about Hawker’s Cuisine before. But since it was early last year and it was when I was still using my old format, with the claustrophobic 4-picture-in-a-frame photo, I feel like a brand new post is warranted.

I have been to Hawker’s Cuisine a few times since then and I haven’t been disappointed with the food yet. The service, on the other hand, is another matter. When you get a nice waitperson like I had this time, you’ll have the best service. But, when you get a rude one, well, I would just say to myself, I’m here for the food. Such are Chinese restaurants, you have to take the good with the bad.As with typical non-high-end Chinese restaurants, the décor was an afterthought. A few lanterns here, Chinese paintings there, an aquarium, bright orangey-yellow chairs, bright colour wall and presto. It’s definitely not a first date kind of restaurant, it’s more like a 30th date sort of place.

sweet soy caramelised pork

With the universities in Australia, engineering students have to have work experience of at least 3 months before they are allowed to graduate. I was one of those students in Kalgoorlie getting some work experience. I stayed at this residence / dorm called the Agricola College while the local students were home for the summer break and only us vacation work students were there.

Those three months consisted of students having lots of booze and doing lots of crazy things, except me of course, because I am such a good girl. One of the students staying there was this guy from mainland China, let's just call him mr. box for convenience sake (sorry I can't remember your name!). Since we were both very budget conscious, we seemed to cook together in the afternoons every 3-4 days. He cooked almost every day and cooked stir fry mostly, whereas I would cook something that I could store and eat for at least 3-4 days straight. I'm lazy if you haven't noticed.

One day I saw he had this pork dish that smelled absolutely marvellous that required almost no effort. There's a lot of waiting around, but I watched TV while waiting for the dish to finish. This recipe actually is very similar, yet quite different, to my grandmother's sweet soy pork (babi kecap). Since I don't know how to cook hers, I cook this one.

Cooked the pork without the fat for my husband who hates pork with fat, it just didn't taste the same to me, too dry, not succulent

hearty tofu & pork

This is another simple recipe from my late grandmother. She was such a gem. Every time I visited her, she would make this tofu & pork for me because it's my absolute favourite. Each and every grandchildren in our family has their own favourites, and everytime they visited her, she would make it for them. That was how she was, a doting grandmother. Every time I make this dish (which is quite often because it's so easy), I would remember how much joy she brought and all the funny little things that she said.

congee dynasty shredded chicken & duck with egg super bowl congee

I've tried Congee Wong a few times before and found the food to be great but service poor. This time, I tried Congee Dynasty because it's close by. Similar to Congee Wong, Congee Dynasty's food is hearty and its portion huge.


Our shredded chicken & duck with egg super bowl congee came quite promptly. I loved the roast duck in the congee, making it something special. It was just the two of us eating and when we were finished we had two container-full of congee left, and we are no lightweights either. I was not exaggerating when I said the portion is huge.

honey glazed pork ribs

When I was a small girl, I always loved it when we have honey glazed pork ribs (baikut madu) on the table. It seems like such a luxury to have, with its golden honey coating the crisply fried succulent pork ribs pieces. I used to think that cooking them must be so complicated and hence never tried it.

One day, though, I woke up early, my mum was serendipitously cooking the pork ribs, so I stayed and watched. I don't know what I was so hesitant about, because it was nothing difficult, it only needed minimal ingredients and it's bloody delicious!