rarerollingobject

Well actually, for food products, they deliver nowhere on the planet outside the US, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

I think the cat cafe was from my pics, unless my boyfriend is really getting around on me Fantastic photos, Hayley. I think I recognise some of the places you ate in Tokyo! Japan really is addictive, no? Every year we come back and I think "That's it! No more Japan for awhile! We should see somewhere else" and then inevitably, the yearning begins..

You = me! I also have a XLBs of Shanghai map! And lots of notes appended to my saved locations, mainly of directions to the spot from the nearest transit that I have pre-stepped visually out on Google Street View.. What can I say, I worship at the altar of Google!

I always use Google Maps. Save locations on my PC and then open the app on my phone when I'm out and about. I have about 20 maps of cities all over the world, and yep, every saved location is food-related!

Unless there's something to it that distinguishes it from rice you've cooked yourself (is there? I'm happy to be wrong!), I don't understand why people buy those sachets of par-cooked rice. Rice isn't that complicated or time-consuming!

Thanks percyn..the location of this house is amazing..at high tide, the water laps against the back steps and you can literally fish out the window! For breakfast today, I made scones with raspberry and damson jam, and thick cream to dollop. Just used yoghurt and sparkling water with the flour, no butter.

More simply grilled seafood, because, hey, I'm on holiday. But first, a favorite treat..sea urchin on toast with slices of lardo melted over. And then BBQ'd king prawns, doused liberally with yuzu tobasco.

Those are from my lawn. No they are not chives. I had found out that they are edible a few years back, but have since forgotten the name. The flowers open during the day and close during the night. May be someone can tell the name. rarerollingobject, those of us who have tried to cook squid can instantly tell that your squid is a dish of beauty. Totally amazing in the exact timing in cooking. There is a very narrow window between overcooking and raw squid. Beautifully photographed too. dcarch dcarch, that's wonderfully kind..especially because that squid was grilled in very difficult circumstances; slightly drunk (me, not the squid), on a BBQ I'd never used before, with so little light to see by that I had to resort to holding up my iPhone as a torch! rotuts, the squid has a little more texture with the skin on...a little crispy, a little chewy. After about three or four minutes on each side.

Percyn, I fear I am egg-disabled. I need lessons, I tell you! Smoked salmon on hot buttered toast with fresh horseradish grated over. And macerated strawberries over a thick slice of jam sponge and a dollop of cream. Hey, I'm on holidays!

Well, I feel silly following the amazing meals of Patrick, Kim, mm84321 and dcarch with THIS..but hey, someone has to. Here's the diametric opposite of those meals' precision and beauty; a big plate of squid grilled Japanese-style, which is to say, skin on and served with lemon and Kewpie mayo. And more than one cold beer.

Gorgeous eggs, percyn, Kim and Kouign. Really, you're all very breakfast-talented. Something a little odd, as usual, for me. Inspired by heidih's brilliant suggestion to use these Vietnamese rice crackers for ceviche, I made some salmon and scallop crudo..salmon with ponzu, sesame oil and sesame seeds, and the scallops with fish sauce, chilli, garlic, sugar and a little lazily shredded nori.

Pretty often, I pound thinly sliced chicken breast even thinner, spread it with something, roll up with a toothpick and lightly flour and saute. Like this. I most often use umeboshi sour plums and shiso leaves, but I imagine it'd be nice with, say, harissa and spinach. A very quick saute of the rolls means that the chicken stays tender and moist.

Not to go off-topic, but I think it would be great if a few eGulleters could get together and do a BBQ crawl. I signed up for a KCBS (Kansas City BBQ Society) judging class next week, just for fun and would love to sample BBQ from various regions. Happy to rent a luxury coach for the roadtrip. Y'all come on to Memphis and Little Rock and points in between. I will SHOW you barbecue. How awesome would that be..percyn, keep me posted if this pans out into an actual thing. What's 15-20 hours flight time for BBQ?? I spent the afternoon in one of Sydney's Vietnamese enclaves, Cabramatta. I found these fantastic rice crackers; I've only seen these in Vietnam. Banh trang me tom, rice crackers with dried shrimp and sesame seeds. I wasn't sure how to cook them so the lady in the shop told me to microwave them for 60 seconds on high..dubious, I did and it worked perfectly. Also bought some nem nuong from one of the butchers; ground pork pre-marinated in lemongrass, garlic, black pepper, sugar and fish sauce. Made them into patties, grilled them and gobbled them up with some carrot quick pickle, mint, basil and nuoc cham (fish sauce and water seasoned with sugar, chilli, garlic, rice vinegar, and lime juice). You break off bits of the rice cracker to use as a scoop. Delightful.

Nice, percyn..you really are the king of eggs! Xiao long bao for me..made them ages ago and just re-discovered them on an archaeological dig of the freezer.

Pan fried mackerel on crisp bread, with a sauce of fresh grated horseradish, creme fraiche, hot English mustard and lemon juice:

Good lord, why not?? I think it'd be a great place to dine alone. There's so much activity going on in the kitchen and everyone is so transfixed by it that noone would ever feel conspicuous being alone there, I think. There's also a bar proper, with 5 seats, that does walk ins and some pretty damn good looking bar food.

Tetsuya's is now $210 for ten courses. Quay is $220 for eight courses. Vue de Monde, in Melbourne, is $250 for eleven. So $175 for fourteen isn't bad, though compared to some of the others, Seiobo's ingredients are a little more humble. Top notch in quality, to be sure, but not the foie gras and truffles you're paying for at Vue de Monde.

Welp, I finally got myself along to Momofuku Seiobo, David Chang's Sydney outpost. I've been to a few of the Momofukus in NYC and really enjoyed them, so have been looking forward to seeing what's what at the Sydney branch. Haven't seen any posts on eG about it so thought I'd share some photos. First things first..all I can say is that they must have thrown a hell of alot of money at him to open in a casino foodcourt! That said, the restaurant feels intimate, sleek and comfortable and quite private from the foodcourt madness. 30ish seats, most of them at a bar wrapped around the kitchen so the chefs pass you your food directly..perfect for food geeks such as I. The format here is a 14 course degustation for AUD$175, with matching wine and sake pairings at $95 for the full lot of $65 for a shortened version. Non-alcoholic types can also have a matching juice course for $55, which I thought was interesting. We went for the full beverage course and it was pretty sensational. Course list: Snacky things to start, with some junmai sake; mochi, rice krispies with soy paste, shiitake crisps and these amazingly delicious smoked potato crisps filled with apple puree: The famous pork buns, with sriracha. The pork was good, but the buns themselves were a little mealy. Crudo of sea mullet with pistachios, pisctachio oil, pomelo and lemon aspen. Lovely and fresh: Marron with burnt eggplant and rhubarb, a West Australian type of crayfish. I loooove marron, the flesh is so sweet and unctuous, so I enjoyed this but thought the burnt eggplant was a little too strong for it. I think this was the dish we were served a beautiful red rice sake with; Ine Mankai. It was almost a dessert wine and I loved it..must track some down. Wagyu with fermented black bean, radish and burnt watermelon oil. This dish I just found odd..again, the burnt taste didn't really go with anything else, and the dressing was a little grainy. Boyfriend hoovered it up though, on the basis of it being wagyu: This dish was spectacular, one of my favourites..jerusalem artichokes, smoked eel, grapfruit and eel broth. Delicious. Completely lost track of the beverage pairings by this point..operator error. Mud crab and with yorkshire pudding. Another winner, especially when you cut the pudding in half, pile the crab on and make it a sandwich. Delicious. Slow cooked egg, green tea, toasted rice and brown butter. Very nice too, though based on the description, I was expecting a whole egg rather than a custard. I think we were served the Pyramid Valley pinot blanc with this; I was too busy Shazaming the very eclectic music to test my boyfriend's encyclopaedic knowledge of all things punk, grunge and blues. He was right every time! Pea ravioli with serrano ham, pea pods and parmesan and chilli foam. I could have eaten a trough of this; by far my favourite dish of the night, which surprised me as I tend to prefer Asian rather than European flavours. Such a joy to eat: A couple of kitchen action shots, for my Thermomix/Vitamix/Robocoupe envy: Mulloway with grilled lettuce, smoked cod roe and what I think were parmesan crumbles: Slow cooked pork neck with pickled turnips and clams. Nice but not spectacular, though I did like the knife that came with it: This was a very interesting dish - bee pollen, honey licorice and shaved cheddar. Surprisingly nice. And caramelised pears, sultana miso, yoghurt meringe and whey powder. I think we were back on sake at this point, quite a dry one. Last dessert course; malt ice cream with muscovado crumble and smoked butter caramel. Served with the richest, most luscious Pedro Ximenez sherry..practically groaning with delight at this point: And petit fours of slow cooked pork shoulder! To be eaten with the hands, I really loved finishing up on this note; pork to finish, why the hell not? I really enjoyed this night. Loved chatting to the staff (the sommelier was most interested in our Shazam-off) and watching busy professional food men (yeah, all men) do things busily and professionally to food. The food itself didn't absolutely blow me away but there are some pretty new tastes and ideas there for Sydney and that's a pretty good thing.

It tasted unbelievable! It really was incredible, in the way that anything involving lots of butter, sugar and garlic will. Here's the recipe (not my blog); highly recommend it. Lovely food, all. Especially like Soba's beautiful vegetables, patrickamory's beef, robirdstx's beans, Rico's chicken, Bruce's ineffably wonderful curries, and FrogPrincesse's brownies..mmmm. And Todd in Chicago: greetings! I made thisgenius recipe from Rozanne Gold; sauteed chicken with roasted grapes and grape demi glace. This is SUCH a good meal. Roasting a grape brings out incredible depth and sweetness, and whisking cold butter into the grape sauce is always going to be a winner. And The Salad of Afterthought.

Bruce - lovely as usual. Beautiful colours in your photo. Kim - love the look of the BBQ! My main goal in life is to do a roadtrip of the US tasting BBQ from all over..one big BBQ crawl. EnriqueB - wonderful food. I always admire the variety in your meals! patrickamory - a man who cooks like that is a keeper. That tahdig looks perfect..I bet the crust was crispy as hell. Mmmmm. It's fresh horseradish root time here - I found a beautiful one and so built a meal around horseradish butter; steaks to slather the butter on, green salad with more grated horseradish in the dressing, and caramelised fennel as a side. Followed the Ottolenghi recipe, caramelising it in butter, sugar and fennel seeds, before stirring in garlic, lemon zest and fennel tops. And a bit more horseradish.

Those are really good for putting in water/drinking bottles too.

I recently bought these, silicone ones for smaller (perfect square) cubes. You push each cube out individually by pushing on it from behind until the compartment turns inside out..I'm not sure whether this would be gentler on your hands though, but the action/pressure is definitely more in the thumbs than the wrists.

Yeah, I would have thought they'd grow in Mexico at least?

Happy birthday, Jmahl. Pizza looks great. Franci, thanks for the directions. I don't tend to eat much pasta, but I'm going to give that a go. As for moi, I woke up this morning with a terrible hankering for gochujang, Korean sweet fermented chilli paste. If there's one ingredient I find hugely addictive, it's gochujang. Made dwaejibulgogi, pork belly braised with gochujang, garlic, ginger, onions, green onions, sesame oil, sugar and soy. And broccolini. Ears are ringing with the heat.

I've never seen a fresh passionfruit in the US, sadly. I make sure to eat my fill whenever I travel outside of the US. I found that amazing when you mentioned on my foodblog, and I find it amazing now..I don't know why, I know not everything's common everywhere, but passionfruit are like weeds here..my new house has a huge passionfruit vine that's completely taken over the clothesline and drops fruit everywhere..I keep having to chuck them out!