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Beautiful meal, Soba. Those radishes are so pretty! Dinner from a few nights ago; Vietnamese caramelised grilled pork (marinated in lemongrass, garlic, eschallots, black pepper, fish sauce and honey) and cha gio/nem ran spring rolls. I finally tried the trick of dissolving some sugar in the water you soak the rice paper wrappers in before rolling, and the sugar DOES make the fried rolls much more reliably golden and crispy.

Noice.

I, too, haven't posted here in a very long time but when I saw the news elsewhere on the web, my heart dropped to my knees. I'll be forever grateful to him for creating this amazing place, from which I've made many friendships. Condolences to his family.

Beautiful dish, Franci. I love anything that involves nian gao!

As much as I hate posting right after mm84321's pictures, this was a pretty simple but delicious piece of salmon, coated in Dijon mustard and then crusted with a mix of crushed pistachios, garlic, brandy, orange zest and olive oil.

Broad beans, cooked in scads of olive oil with dry cured bacon, garlic and red onion. On sourdough toast. The spring is sprung, and all that.

Funny, I cooked beef cheeks tonight. The Movida recipe, in Pedro Ximenez. Photo and recipe link over on the Dinner thread, here.

I've missed your food, Bruce. Cold here in Sydney, so I braised beef cheeks in Pedro Ximenez and served with cauliflower puree (this recipe: http://movida.com.au/slowly-braised-beef-cheeks-in-pedro-ximenez-with-cauliflower-puree-carillera-de-buey/), which was rather sensationally easy AND delicious. I'm firmly on the beef cheek bandwagon.

That fried chicken is a thing of beauty, Kim.

Japanese-ish things tonight. My cousin gave me some baby eggplants from his garden, so grilled them with saikyo miso, ginger, mirin and sake (actually, Franci being reminded of miso eggplant by Prawncrackers reminded ME!) and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Also spinach dressed in garlic, black pepper, honey and sesame oil (OK, that's more Korean but eh) and had some of this beautiful wagyu karubi so grilled that very lightly and ate with a ponzu dipping sauce. Also miso soup with some little clams, not shown.

Beautiful waffles! My breakfast; steamed silken tofu, topped with crispy roasted broad beans, green onion, lao gan ma chilli oil, chopped pickled mustard greens, Chinkiang black vinegar, soy sauce and white pepper.

Ha, yeah it's amazing what you can find in Sydney if you'd stoop to come across my side of the Bridge every so often! Anyway, those look a lot nicer than mine. My, what soft and tender buns you have, sir!

Beautiful vegetables as always, Soba. You're an inspiration. You too, FrogPrincesse, I always enjoy seeing what you've been up to. Keith, your char siew looks amazing. Pork neck is so underrated but is always my favourite cut for CS. Franci, lovely meals. And huiray/patrickamory, I'm also talking about the Koon Yick chilli sauce, image here. It's maybe a bit like sriracha, but less sweet, to my taste. Not that hot but a lovely thick rounded fullness. Although, interestingly, its base is sweet potato - which is maybe what gives it the thickness I enjoy. I mean, to me it's the classic Hong Kong chilli sauce of my youth and is always the one I reach for when I want something not too sour, or too hot, or too sweet. Kim, highly suggest tracking down the buns! Perfectly easy to steam (10 minutes from frozen) and just the right foil for the sweet fatty pork. I'm very interested in those crostatas, so let's consider it a carbohydrate idea swap! And Baselerd, that is a ridiculously beautiful meal! I'd be hesitant to eat it. Not THAT hesitant though. Dinner here was a "complicated salad" as my BF calls anything beyond iceberg and anaemic tomato; radishes, greens, oranges and walnuts, dressed in cinnamon/honey/pomegranate molasses and pistachio oil. And lamb chops grilled in ras el-hanout spice mix. With a celery gimlet afterwards (Tanquery, lime, simple, celery bitters).

What... no chili? Are you feeling OK, RRO? You know me too well, pasta! I got up halfway through the first bite and went and got my Koon Yick fix on.

Gua bao, or pork belly buns. Braised the belly, bought the buns! Also some gai lan with ginger, which barely made it into the shot.

Hmm, I was there last week and booked a table for 2 through toptable.co.uk about 10 days beforehand and didn't seem to have any trouble at all. In fact, there were quite a few seating timeslots to choose from for my preferred night (a Wednesday) and the nights immediately before and after. Admittedly, it was pretty packed while we there. Incidentally, I was pretty underwhelmed. The food experience (between us, we tried the salmagundi, the meat fruit, the cod in cider, a sous vide beef special and the brioche dessert to share, as well as four wines by the glass) was "Well, that was nice, and it's over now" rather than anything particularly memorable or impressive - food that was just fine and efficiently served up to you, to the point of feeling mechanical. I'd actually venture to say it was about on par with middle range restaurants I'd eat at in Tokyo (my gold standard of a food city), rather than anything brilliant. And the service varied, from a waiter who told me off and tut tutted that I'd opened my menu before he'd come over to "talk me through it" (please! I know you have to do your spiel, but I can't even OPEN it??), to possibly the sweetest floor manager in the world, who I got to talking to about sous vide and who then excitedly showed me around all the cool gadgets in the kitchen, gave me heaps of recommendations for other places to eat in London, gave me his contact details should I ever want to come back etc, and was generally lovely. Did have a enjoyable view of the park though!

Hey there. Just happened across this thread and saw this. My recipe, such as it is, is just 1 cup mineral/sparkling water, 1 cup Greek yoghurt or cream, 3 cups self-raising flour. Mix together with a knife, dump out and cut scone-like rounds, brush with a little leftover yoghurt and bake 15 minutes at 220C. They're not as flaky as butter-based scones, but very easy. I tend to make savoury scones (i.e. use this as a base to add cheese, green onions, chilli, bacon or whatnot, but for a sweet version, I just add some sugar. Makes perfectly nice scones, if you ask me. My theory is that the carbonation gives the self-raising flour a little more lift.

My mother grows identical-looking ones, and after much pondering it over the years, I've pretty much convinced myself they're green chile de arbols - images here.

Yummy looking meals there, Kim. I've had a hankering for green beans lately, I may try them long-cooked. rotuts, the tahini sauce is simply crushed garlic mixed with tahini and salt and thinned with lemon juice. Sometimes I add a spoonful of Greek yoghurt, but not this time. The beans, I riffed on this recipe, but skipped the raisins and orange zest. It was a winner though..will definitely make it again.

I like the look of that Lyonnaise, Soba. And patrickamory, your pomegranate duck had me hankering for pom. molasses, so: Green beans braised with pomegranate molasses, chilli, lime and walnuts With swordfish and tahini garlic sauce.

Beautiful food in this thread, FrogPrincesse - I'm really thinking about ordering this book now!

I love that danish Christmas tree, Kim! Breakfast here was crispbread smeared with avocado, and topped with flaked smoked eel and this extraordinarily delicious Japanese condiment I've just found; okazushoga (or that's what the Japanese text says, anyway). It's some kind of sprinkle for topping rice etc, like furikake - this is sort of oily clumps of ginger (the shoga), sugar, salt, onion powder and MSG. SO good. I have to find more of this!

Beautiful beef, Paul. And PC, insanely wonderful dishes as usual. scubadoo97, that pork belly looks luscious.. Simple food for me, still in recovery. Salmon sashimi, chopped with avocado and dressed with soy sauce, sesame oil, furikake and packaged tempura crumbles (tenkasu). They look like rice krispies, no?

Not the prettiest plate I've ever made, but I had sausages, chicken stock and cavolo nero to use up so I followed this recipe to make "Italian Wedding Soup". http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-italian-wedding-soup-136211 Pictured with a photobombing cat.

I've spent quite a lot of time in Vietnam, and they definitely use Maggi. It's often in the condiment tray on restaurant tables, too.