KennethT

Weird... when I click the link, it takes me to the first post of the return flight meals. First up are the photos of the menus, then photos of the first meal. Next post is the 2nd meal, followed by a post with the snack, followed by the pizza... Let me know if you don't see it and I can link it again....

Years ago, I used to make flank steak SV pretty regularly. My goto was 131F for 24 hours, then torch before serving.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to start getting everything together and pack. Our flight to Singapore left Manado at 5PM which meant that we had to check out and be on the boat back to Manado by 1:45. 2 other groups of guests were leaving at the same time since they we were all on the same flight - there's a limited way to get to/from Manado. Lunch started at 1PM, so we all had a fast lunch on the beach: Tofu, chicken curry with herbs and sambal bakar (top left), sambal matah (between the tofu and chicken) and the last dabu-dabu. I don't know why they called this black forest cake - no cherries were involved it its creation.... Last pineapple for a while.... One of the servers was so sweet - the coffee mousse was late being brought out to the buffet, so as we were eating, he came to us to let us know that it arrived and asked if he could bring us some. Note that all of the mousses (mic(c)e?) had the texture and mouthfeel of whipped cream. Unfortunately, this would be the last time we would eat until the airport in Singapore that night. The airport in Manado was pretty desolate (I don't think they had many flights that day) and had limited food options - besides, we weren't really that hungry yet. Then the 3 hour flight to Singapore was on a budget airline so nothing there either. Once in Singapore, we had to go through immigration (takes 2 seconds using their autogates) and then get our bags, and then check them in for our flight home. I had planned on getting something fast to eat at a food stall in our terminal at a place called Sarawak Gourmet which claimed to make colo mee, a famous noodle dish from Kucing - the main city of Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo), but unfortunately and surprisingly for the Singapore airport, it took forever to get our bags. They claimed that there was some kind of technical problem in getting the bags off the plane but it took at least 45 minutes to get our bags. The airport came around with a cart with snacks, but we weren't in the mood for a pack of Oreo cookies, a bag of Doritos or a Kit Kat bar. By the time we got our bags and rechecked them in, there was no way we'd be able to get something to eat as our flight was due to start boarding in about 30 minutes. We passed a French boulangerie called Paul on the way to our gate, so once we were settled, I ran back to them and grabbed their last palmier as I could grab it fast. No photos - we devoured it in the final minutes before boarding which between that and some cashews I had brought from home (yikes, I wonder what their carbon footprint was!) was enough to tide us over until meal time on the plane which could be found starting here. Getting ready to land in NY around 6AM. So that's it for this trip! Thanks for reading along and see you after the New Year!

Last breakfast: Bacon, chocolate pancake (with rambutan honey) and awesome pastry stuffed with spiced apple. I went back and got seconds of those, to make up for all the diving we had done the last 3 days, of course. Can't get enough of this... my wife and I did our best to clean them out of pineapple at practically every meal. Toast with peanut butter - unsweetened, unsalted plain ground peanuts... the texture was runny and with the house made preserves and some salt was fantastic.

Dinner that night: Cake-bread. Very tasty with: Mild dabu-dabu. The hotel would usually provide a triple dish with dabu-dabu, sambal bakar and some olive oil but we would clean out the sambals in a couple bites so they always brought us more. That night was the night of the buffet sushi, but they also had a seafood barbeque: Grilled shrimp, tuna and squid, with red rice and dabu-dabu which is always great with fish. I can't remember when I've had as many desserts as on this trip. I kept telling myself that it was because of all of the exercise.... hehe....

Lunch that day was held "inside" - the restaurant had a roof but no walls - because was drizzling on and off: Chicken cutlet with garlic and kaffir lime rice, sambal bakar and dabu-dabu. From the side station - mackerel with coconut sauce. I really appreciated the fact that it was cooked to order - it was cooked perfectly, nicely flakey and juicy - not how the fish in the area is typically cooked which is "to death" since the fish at the market isn't refrigerated or on ice. I have to say that I was a little nervous that it wasn't thoroughly cooked knowing how fish is typically stored/treated in that area but there were no problems. One evening, the hotel even had a sushi display in the buffet but we were both too nervous to have any raw fish there. I assume that it would have been safe, but we didn't want to risk anything getting in the way of the diving, which is our whole reason for being there. Studded with slices of fresh coconut.

Breakfast the next morning: Beef sausage with sambal bakar. The sausage was simmered with onion - it kind of tasted like bologna or mortadella. Gotta have my pineapple and dragonfruit fix.... Sweet bread filled with chocolate: The chocolate interior was surprisingly not grainy like I typically see it in a chocolate croissant - pain au chocolat. More dive videos: I'd never seen this live before - a turtle at a cleaning station - several remora fish were stuck on the turtle eating whatever was stuck to its shell. Bigmouth mackerel - we saw a couple of schools of these over the few days we were there.

A couple dive videos from that day: This video shows a couple of turtles... The island of Bunaken is well known for lots of turtles but I was shocked at how many we saw over the 3 days. This is an interesting video - it shows the caretaker of the reef - the parrotfish, in action. In addition to being really colorful, they're interesting because they bite off a chunk of coral reef and then poop out sand... Dinner that night was not buffet, but plated for some reason. Menu Onion bread - like at the other hotel, the bread had a cake-like texture - this one was stuffed with sliced onion. Really tasty with a ton of the sambal dabu-dabu Amuse - a fish croquette Pork dumplings I neglected to take a photo of the main course - I got the chicken massaman curry which didn't really taste like massaman but it was tasty. Mango parfait.

I don't even see it listed at all at Cuisinart USA's website... If an enterprising Canadian were to send a friend in the USA a gift, do we have to pay duty?

@Duvel Your ability to put out so many dishes plus side dishes and not spend 4 days making it all never ceases to impress me. I'd love to see video of you working in the kitchen - must be like watching ballet...

I saw the NuWave earlier today but the footprint is significantly smaller than the CSO-500C. CSO: 20.80" x 19.10" x 18.30" NW: 13.88 x 14.75 x 14.88

I think your Google map needs updating.... St. Catharine's ON is about 450 miles away from NYC.... That's a long day trip!

Yes, I see it on Cuisinart Canada's website, but not on their US website.

It's not too late for me to cancel my Ebay order if you're willing to part with yours!

It'd be even funnier if that's who I was buying it from!!! She doesn't happen to live in California?

Thanks. It's amazing how we can become attached to devices like this. I'll probably keep it even if the pan doesn't fit - I barely use it with that pan anymore anyway so it's not a huge loss. If it is only a fraction of an inch different, I can always shave down the cast iron pan a bit! Always fun to break out the angle grinder....

Also, I find it a little funny that I paid considerably more for the replacement than I did for the original!

Screw it... I bought it. I figure that they have a 30 day return policy in case it's not what I thought - I just pay the shipping back. Thanks for the help, y'all!

Interesting - the photo of the box shows the p/n as CSO-300N, but the image of the oven on the box shows the steam clean button. Personally, I don't really care about the steam clean button, I can always just set the oven to super steam at 250F but I'm more concerned about the difference in interior space.

Thanks - Google's AI also lined to @Ann_T site! I wonder if the older version will accommodate the cast iron plate that I use with the one I've got now - it just barely fits... granted, I don't use it much, but I'd like to still have the option.

Does anyone remember what the difference was between the N and N1 versions? The one for sale is an N, but the one I have that is dying is the N1.

That's an idea, buying one for parts - but it's really hard to access the fan area - I'd rather not drill out any rivets to get to it as that's what seems like would be necessary.

Thanks. I checked Ebay, but I'd prefer to not buy a used oven. I couldn't find any open box or new. I did find some other options like a new Panasonic 7-in-1 steam oven and a few others, but they don't have many reviews and the Panasonic doesn't even list interior dimensions!

hey Everybody - I know quite a few of those here who use their CSO a lot had bought spares, which may or may not be still sitting in a box in the garage (or bedroom) or somewhere.... So now I'm begging one of you to think about letting one go.... I'm pretty sure that @rotuts, @Shelby, @JoNorvelleWalker, @gfweb and maybe a few others have one. If you know of someone not listed, please add to the list. The fan (more likely a bearing) in my current CSO has been making a horrible squealing noise sporadically for some time now. Sometimes you can turn off the oven and turn it back on to solve the problem, sometimes it won't. I'd be happy to disable the fan but I'm pretty sure it's necessary for anything steam related. I tried taking the oven apart to access the fan, but there's a plastic piece in front of it (the part that's adjacent to the water tank) that seems like it's attached to the entire outer case and I don't really see how to get it off without drilling out some rivets. Plus, once I get it off, who knows if I can even replace the fan assembly or the faulty bearing. So, I'm humbly imploring this group to take pity on a wayward CSO owner who didn't have the foresight to buy an extra one and sell me one of yours. I can furnish a UPS call tag and have UPS come to you to pick up, and I can make payment through Zelle, check, wire transfer, envelope full o' cash or any other way you'd prefer. Please PM me if you are willing to help!!! Thank you!!!

maybe, maybe not. Now, with AI, it's easier to check to see if what you have written was plagiarized - publishers can run text through it (even Grammarly has an AI function that checks for plagiarism now) and refuse to publish something if they find a high enough percentage of similarity to previous works.