This morning

On my way to work, I looked up the sky and the clouds looked interesting so I took a photo of it.

Grilled salmon with Italian lemon herb sauce

Last night's dinner

Grilled salmon with Italian Lemon&Herb sauce

I had a very busy day yesterday at work and I was exhausted by the time I reached home.
I was not so hungry, but thought of cooking somehting quick.

Well, this is very easy & quick, yet delicious  recipe.

Ingredients

Salmon 1 piece

Sweet mini tomatoes  about 6

Haloumi cheese - small piece will do

Instructions

1. Place a piece of salmon on a heated pan. Let it grill with it's own fish oil.

Once cooked, add chopped tomatoes and haloumi cheese.

Add 1 tea spoon of soya sauce and 3 table spoons of Marks &Spenser's Italian Lemon&Herb sauce.

Cook till the ingredients absorb the sauce.

Ready to serve!

I didn't have time to make it this time but I think it  goes well with mashed potatoes.

Farewell lunch at Ootoya

My collegue's farewell at Ootoya last thursday.

I ordered my favourite chicken black venegar dish.

It was not bad, but I found the one in Tokyo much better...

Sunday lunch & dinner out

I caught up with my friend over lunch on last sunday. We had pork cutlets at Ma. Maison!
This place was awesome :)

Pork was soft and juicy, the outside was very crisply!
The zakkoku mai (the brown rice with heaps of grains) was also delicious!
Rice and cabbage are free flow.

I had never been picky for pork cutlets when I was in Japan. It's because almost everywhere I go (except for some dodgy places), they serve very crispy and tender cutlets in Japan!

But ever since I moved to overseas, it had been difficult.
Most of the time, pork has got too much fat and there is hardly any pork inside the breadcrumbs. This is cheating!
Also despite the low quality, It is often pricy! The worst is the very soggy cutlets. Ahhh I hate those!!!

But hey, this pork cutlets at Ma. Maison at mandarin gallery is really great!

Thanks a lot to my friend who took me there :)


We did a lot of shopping after lunch and we had sukiyaki udon for dinner!

It was not bad either! The taste was great, I just wish that they serve it hot!!!
It was not cold but not hot either.
I ate at "fu fu udon" and "fu fu" in Japanese means hot! ( it's the sound you make to cool down the food temperature. If the udon is not hot, you can't make this sound)

Anyway overall it was a fun & delicious Sunday!!

Smile!

Guess what I ate for lunch today...

Yang tau foo!!!!!

Finally I got to eat it!!
I've been craving for it for the entire week.

Apparently my colleagues are sick of yang tau foo. I guess it's because i always ask them to eat there. Haha
I wonder if I will ever get sick of yang tau foo...



Why, oh why are you so delicious!!!

Today's dinner - mushroom risotto

Today's dinner

Mushroom risotto

Asparagus

Flat pork dumplings

Today's dinner. Awesome! Easy and super delicious bibimpab recipe

Today's dinner: Korean food

Bibimpab & Miso soup

I love Bibimpab.

Bibimpab is one of the only dishes I order at a Korean restaurant.

Well, another dish is Bulgogi, which I can easily make at home with some nice thinly sliced beef and Korean BBQ sauce.

I usually don't order other Korean dishes because I am not that good at spicy food.

Anyway, so when I think of Korean food, I think of you, I think of  Bibimpab.

Few times a month, I have an urge to eat Bibimpab and whenever that happends, I used to go to my favourite Korean restaurant.

But my favourite bibimpab is in Melbourne. I can't easily go there while I live in Singapore.

What am I going to do if that urge happends?

I tried some of the Korean restaurants here in Singapore, but I haven't been able to find my favourite ones.

Well, I think Today, I lost a reason to look out for my favourite Bibimpab and Korean restaurants.

I made it myself!

You may wonder that the shape of the egg looks kinda weird, or rather cute.
It  looks like a Koala bear face, don't you think? Well, I do and I like it.

Anyway, underneath the Koala egg, there are BBQed pork belly&onions, kimchi, boiled spinach, marinated bean sprouts and grilled mushrooms. It was very very yum...

Indeed, I think I lost a reason to go to a Korean restaurant.
Or rather, I lost a reason to eat outside. I can now have bibimpab at home!

Awesome Bibimpab recipe

BBQ Pork:

Slice onions and stir fry with thinly sliced pork belly with Japanese BBQ sauce

Marinated bean sprouts:

Recipe is here

Kimchi :

I just bought one from a local supermarket

Spinach:

Just boil after wash

Mushroom:

Cut them into small pieces and stir fry/grill with some sesame oil and a pinch of salt

Egg:

make a sunny side up

Place white rice at the bottom of a bowl, then all the small dishes then, the sunnyside egg on top!

Put Korean chilli sauce and mix well before you eat!

Today's dinner and potato salad recipe

Today's dinner

Menu

Tina's fried rice (my friend's recipe)

Tofu with dried shaved bonito, ginger & soy sauce

Asparagus

Potato salad

Marinated bean sprouts

Miso soup

Asparagus in Singapore are so much thinner than the ones in Australia.

I love them! They get very soft when I boil them.

Hiyayakko

Special frid rice!

Easy & Tasty potato salad recipe

Ingredients

*potatoes 2-3

*onion 1/8

*Japanese cucumber1/4

*Sweet honey mini tomatoes 3-5

*vinegar 1-2 table spoons (as you like)

*mayonaise 3 table spoons

*a pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions

1. peel the potato skin (if you like it with skin, you can keep the skin as well), cut into half or 1/4, depending on the size of the potatoes. Boil them till they become soft enough to mash.

2. Meanwhile, slice the onion and cucumber into thin slices. cut the tomatoes into half.

3. Once potatoes are done, take them out of the water, mash them, and cool them down.
Then, add all the ingredients including the veggies and sauce and mix them well.
Leave it in the fridge for a while and serve it cold!

Looking back my holiday in Melbourne

I realized that I hadn't finished writing about my family trip in Singapore.

But I have to write about my Melbourne trip first before I forget!
I went back to Melbourne for about a week, using Japanese "Golden week holiday" !

I'm going to look back my holiday by introducing various good food I ate in Melbourne.

 Ok, the picture above is, the real "breakfast stack" from my favourite cafe in Melbourne.

Everything is stack nicely. The poached egg is amazing too!

I am going to practice hard! Someday, my breakfast stack will look like this!

The picture above is my friend's cooking! Some moroccan food she said.

Nice warm stew and Halloumi cheese salad! She is my master cheif.

Melbourne was so cold that I really appreciated this warm stew she made.

Thank you!

These cute cup cakes are from my another friend.

They were sooo yummy!

This is my favourite bibimpab (Korean food) from Oriental Spoon.

I tried bibimpab from different korean restaurants in Melb and also in Singapore,

but still nothing can beat this.

Dear my taco!

I missed you so much!!!!

I was craving for taco when I was in Singapore.

I can buy the taco pack in Singaore but it is not nice to eat taco alone!

One of my food dreams came true during my melb trip!

Thank you!

Japanese style breakfast

Today's breakfast was Japanese style breakfast!

*Grilled salmon

*Dashimaki tamago (Japanese style rolled egg)

*pickled radish

*cabbage & carrots miso soup

*white rice

Oh yes, white rice!

I recently switched from a cheap rice brand to Akitakomachi, Japanese rice.

Now, the rice tastes so much better now! I can eat rice just by itself, without any sauce or side dishes. Each piece of rice is soft, round and sweet.

I like western style breakfast but I guess I am still Japanese, I love Japanese style the best!

This morning, the moment I woke up, I had an urge for Japanese style breakfast.

I had to eat it!

So I walked to the kitchen and cooked the salmon, egg, and miso soup.

I had already pickled radish few days ago and they were still in the fridge ready to serve!

I like to make a lot of pickles and save them in the fridge so that whenever I'm hungry, I can just take them out of the fridge and eat them!

Radish pickles aer very yummy.

The recipe is inspired by my favourite korean restaurant in melb.

You can pickle half of radish with about 4 table spoons of suger, 1 table spoon of vinegar, and some wasabi!

The egg was soft and sweet and yummy!

The dashimaki tamago recipe is here

Today I have a non-stick square pan specially for dashimaki tamago.

So here, the egg looks nicer than the one in the recipe.

If you want to make a really good looking egg, please use a non-stick,  square shaped pan!

Today's breakfast was a little bit plain.

 It could have been even better to add spinach & tofu dish to today's breakfast!

(I didn't have stock in my fridge)

It was still very yummy though!

Happy Sunday!

Delicious "Breakfast stack" recipe

My very first attempt in making my favourite Melbourne breakfast !!

Today's brunch

"Breakfast stack"



My most favourite breakfast is a dish called "breakfast stack" in one of the cafes in Melb.
I used to eat this often when I lived in Melbourne.
But since I moved to Singapore last year, I hadn't been able to eat it for a long time.
I missed this dish so much.

So, when I went back to Melbourne for a holiday about a week ago, I thought I must eat this again.
And I did! It was as awesome as last time I ate it.


After flying back to Singapore, I missed this dish again straight away.
Then I thought,

hey why don't I try making it myself at home?

Well, the display of the dish is not as good as the real "breakfast stack" as I failed to make them stack nicely, and also my very fist attempt in making poached egg failed.


But hey!

It tasted as delicious as the one I ate in Melbourne!:D
I think, the secret is the Halloumi cheese and the tomato sauce around the stack!

I stack a potato patty, few slices of grilled Halloumi cheese, chicken& cheese sausages, grilled tomatoes and a poached egg.

For the tomato sauce, I used tomatoes, onions, Italian herbs, Lemon & Garlic marinate sauce (from Marks&Spencer) and tomato ketchup.



It takes time- but it's delicious and cost saving if you cook it at home!
Also you can eat it anytime & anywhere you want! - Well, what I meant by "Anywhere" is countries like whether you are in Australia or Singapore or in Japan, you can have this delicious breakfast!)





Recipe


Ingredients

*potatoes 2
*sweet honey mini tomatoes 5 or so
*your choice of sausages/bacons 2
*Halloumi cheese 2 slices
*egg 1
*Butter/olive oil 1 tea spoon
*Italian herbs- just a sprinkle

Ingredients for the sauce
*sweet honey mini tomatoes 5 or so
*Onion1/8
*Lemon and Gralic marinate sauce 3 table spoons
*Tomato ketchup 4 table spoons
*Italian herbs - just a sprinkle


Instructions

1. Peel the potato skin, cut them into half, boil them till they become soft enough to mash.
2. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes into half (Cut all the tomatoes, both for the stack and the sauce together, so that it will be easier later on).
3. Once the potatoes are boiled, take them out of the water and mash! Once mashed, make a patty shape.
4. Heat up a pan with either butter or olive oil. place the patty and half of the chopped tomatoes. Sprinkle the herbs on top of the tomatoes, leave them for a while then, flip them over before they get burnt. Once nicely cooked, take them out of the pan, and start stacking. A potato patty, then tomatoes.
5. On the same pan, cook the cheese and sausages. (Cheese cooks faster than sausages)
Once done, stack them on top of the tomatoes.
6. Poaching the egg! - I'm still not sure how to do it well, but boil the water in a pot, either gently crack the egg into the water, or crack the egg on a bowl first and slowly smoothly slip the egg into the water.
Once done, place the egg on top of the breakfast stack!


7. Now, the sauce! sauce is easy.
Mince the onion. put all the ingredients in a pan. bring it to boil.

Enjoy!!!
Happy weekend!

Back in Singapore - last night dinner with my new plate!

*Curry

*cheese miso tofu steak

*Pork rafutei

*salad

*pickled radish & stewed radish