KennethT

I have no problems reheating refrigerated rice. My improvised steamer, which is a wet papertowel layed over the top and tucked in the sides, microwaved for about a minute or two, works really well for rehydrating/reheating... I was worried about b. cereus since it's commonly discussed as a problem with rice, and I had heard that it still grows at refrigerated temps so had always heard not to keep old rice more than a day or two in the fridge.

I didn't use a recipe per se... In Thailand, they will make som tum out of lots of different things, depending on what's on hand. In this country, we know it only as the "green papaya salad", but my preference is for the same thing but made with green mango - the green mango is a little more tart and tannic, but practically impossible to find in this country (or at least that I've seen). But you can adapt the basic dressing/method to lots of things... so I used cucumber - the mini persian kind which has the tender skin. A long time ago, I saw a recipe for som tum and its variants in the Pok Pok book by Andy Ricker... I've been using it as a basis fora long time, but haven't actually looked at the recipe in a long time either, so I may have been making changes as time goes by. The basis is dried shrimp, palm sugar, lime juice, chilis and fish sauce, oh and peanuts.. I usually add a clove or two of garlic, and last night, just because I had it laying around, I added a sprig of lemongrass, minced then pounded into a paste (or really sawdust since the lemongrass I get here isn't very juicy). I also threw some fried shallot on top, because fried shallots make everything better.

@HKDave Exactly the info I was looking for. Thank you. To all the other replies - I thank you as well - while I understand the quality loss that comes with refrigerating rice, I have relatively low standards for my weekday lunches while at work... I don't really have time to enjoy it anyway!

Finally over the jetlag (mostly) so it's time to start cooking again.... Weekly salmon, with cucumber som tum.

Now I'm nervous... I currently live in an apt. with a gas range and practically no counters space, so I've put off buying one of these, no matter how good you all make it look. My wife and I are considering moving to a new apt. with, gasp, no gas! The kitchen currently has an old electric coil top range, which I loath, and will get rid of post haste if we move. Since we only cook for the two of us, and really only use the full size of our current oven for keeping delivered pizza warm while we eat it slice by slice, I've been thinking of just getting a CSO and a couple induction burners... What will I do now? I'm thinking of getting a CSO, but I'm not even sure we're going to get this apartment.... arrgghhhh....

@liuzhou great stuff.... I think your grandson is your clone...

Thanks for posting this! @gfron1 This looks incredible - I'm so happy to see all your hard work executed so well! I wish I lived closer so we'd be able to come...

Beautiful shots!

I've had refrigerated rice left a day or two - it reconstitutes well using my improvised steamer method - wet paper towel over the top, microwave for on high for about a minute or 1.5

I would pitch a tent and live in that store...

You beat me to it!!! Where is this magical free room? Around here, we don't even get discounted! Also, @Kerry Beal what did you think of the Robuchon fries? How do you think they compare with other methods? The best fries I've ever had were ones I made using Dave Arnold's method on Cooking Issues many years ago... granted, it took practically all day and required stuff like Pectinex to degrade the surface pectin, but they were awesome... perfectly fluffy on the inside, and super crisp on the outside, even once cold they stayed crisp!

I am exploring options for my usual weekday lunches - I make this over the weekend, refrigerate, then microwave while at work to warm. For a long time, I've always brought some kind of noodle/pasta dish - it warms just fine in the microwave for about a minute with a damp paper towel layed over the top. I was thinking about extending this to rice based dishes - but I'm nervous about eating cooked rice that has been in the refrigerator for about 5-6 days. Does anyone have any info about the safety of doing something like this? Some people may have the idea of keeping a small rice cooker at work and making the rice fresh each day, but I usually hardly have time to eat, as well as washing/rinsing and cleaning the rice cooker. My workplace is a factory (of non-foodstuffs) so isn't the most hospitable place in the world for making food - the microwave is in the office, but the sinks are out in the factory or the restrooms, neither of which is suitable to be anywhere near stuff to be put in one's mouth!

You can have the six fries with the lone okra... :>)

I wish I could "like" and "sad face" at the same time!

I keep picturing the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's in the fancy restaurant eating a lone carrot on a plate with a fork and knife...

I'm leaving the winery visits up to my wife as she's in the industry. That's what actually sparked the NZ trip - she was offered a trip to NZ where they would take her around to various wineries, but we weren't happy with it as teh trip was almost 2 weeks long, and we don't like to be away from each other for that much time. So we decided we would go together on our own, and just see what we wanted to see, rather than get taken around by whoever is footing the bill!

I try to learn a little bit of the language of each country we visit. This can be problematic since I don't know each of those languages very well (at all), sometimes words in the wrong language slips out, which gets some pretty funny looks! Most of the time though, I don't really get a chance to use the language much anyway - in most places, it seems there's someone around who speaks some English (usually a younger person working somewhere), or they have menu with pictures, or we just do some pointing. One time I was happy I spent the time to learn some Vietnamese was when we were doing a private "tour" with a hired taxi for the day - the driver spoke no English, and there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the order of our itinerary... also, once we got out of Saigon, he was completely lost, so I had to give him directions while using Google Maps on my phone.

There was definitely alcohol available in the hotels, but we didn't have any. For a while now, I've been taking some medication that doesn't play nicely with alcohol at all... so unless there's something absolutely worthwhile, I don't bother. And my wife, funny enough, works in the wine business, so she's actually very happy with a vacation from it from time to time! The next trip is actually going to be this winter, over Xmas... we're headed to the south island of New Zealand, spending most of our time in Otago, where I'm sure we'll be visiting a winery or two... As it's in your neck of the woods, I'd love to hear if you had any recommendations... most of the time will be spent in Otago, and we'll have 1 or 2 nights in Christchurch.

The next day, we woke up early to make our flight back to Singapore - our flight landed around 1:30PM, and we didn't have to be back in the airport for our flight home until about 8, so we checked our bags in the airport and took a taxi into the city. After landing, we went straight for a light lunch (they had already fed us on the plane - check out the Airline food thread)... I had been jonesing for this place ever since our trip here a few years ago... Since we were here last, they have significantly upgraded their restaurant space and ordering system, as well as opened some satellite locations... good to know the food is just as good though! Kid goat biryani Chicken biryani Their biryani is done the traditional way, now called Dum Biryani. The aromatics are incredible... I wish I could find something even remotely as good in NYC... for more info, see my Week in Singapore thread in the SE Asia dining section from a few years ago... After lunch, we headed off to the Gardens by the Bay. With so many choices of what to do, and such little time to do it, it was a tough decision, but I had read earlier that they had a new exhibit of scented orchids in the Cloud Forest... Enroute to the gardens... Then we went on to the Flower Dome where they were having a rose exhibit... Bottle trees Baobob - makes me thing of Le Petit Prince... The super trees... functional they they not only make electricity for the gardens (there are solar cells on top), they are very useful in the dehumidification of the domes - the system uses a liquid desiccant which removes a lot of humidity which takes a huge load off of their A/C system... the liquid desiccant is then boiled to release the water which is vented out through the top of the trees. Time for an early dinner before we go back to the airport... I couldn't wait to get back to an old favorite... Sambal Pomfret - I love their sambal - it's a wonderful mixture of chili, garlic, shallots, dried shrimp and shrimp paste, and who knows what else... This is fried until it's almost dry... the fish is coated in rice flour and wok fried, then coated with the sambal... if there is a heaven, it smells like shrimp paste... Crab bee hoon - this is one of the huge mud crabs - the claw meat is the size of a small fist! Tons of sweet crabmeat and very little effort needed to extract it. It seems like there's a lot of sauce, but it was sucked up by the bee hoon (rice noodles) pretty quickly. This was a really tasty dish, but I think the crab bee hoon at Sing Huat Eating House had a bit better flavor to the bee hoon... but this crab was cooked absolutely perfectly, while Sin Huat's was slightly overcooked the last time we were there.... Kangkong, aka morning glory, aka pak boong, aka rau muong, aka ong choy Baby gailan Now that we are completely stuffed, it's time to head back to the airport to get our bags out of storage. There is a spa/lounge pre-security in Terminal 2 that has shower rooms for rent... for about US$13, we were able to spend 45 minutes taking a shower and getting changed into fresh clothes for our 18 hour plane flight home... So that's it!!! I hope you enjoyed coming along our trip and that the rambling that my half-jetlag induced head came up with made some sort of sense!

For dinner that night, we went to a sate place that specializes in goat... Goat satay sweet soy sauce with chili gule kambing - goat curry The scene outside of the restaurant After dinner, we went to check out another famous Javanese/Jogja thing, wayang kulit - shadow puppets... Gamelan orchestra Puppeteer getting ready... What's interesting is that you can sit on either side of the screen, so you can watch the puppeteer and orchestra (and see the puppets, made out of leather), or the shadows created... Traditionally, wayang kulit does the whole story of the Ramayana over a 12 hour period straight through - starting around 10PM and going all night... but they have shorter versions at the wayang museum where the show is 1-2 hours and they only do a piece of the story.

The next day was our last full day in Jogja.... breakfast at the hotel, similar as before, but a couple new additions: A different kind of chicken stew Fish with "barbecue sauce" which is like kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) various types of kueh - mostly made from glutinous rice - colorful, but all relatively flavorless... the brown one was sweet with palm sugar After breakfast, we went to Taman Sari (translated as the Water Castle), which were the baths area for the Sultan... they were heavily damaged during an earthquake, but have been partially restored... Like most sites here, the ticket prices are higher for international tourists than they are for domestic tourists... still not expensive though - 15,000RP is a little more than $1... After that, we were going to go for lunch... we still haven't had the local specialty gudeg outside of the hotel, so we went to a very famous place for it, open since 1950 or so.... Gudeg Sagan, the palace that Gudeg built... The large menu... unfortunately, many of the things that went with the gudeg were sold out... for example, Paha is chicken leg/thigh... the only thing part of the chicken they had left were Kepala (head) and Dada (translated as chest - but it's what would be called an airline breast) This is it... the gudeg is on the right, much more moist, and not as sweet as it was in the hotel. To the left of it is the krecek, the beef skin cooked in coconut milk - it was pretty spicy, and so tender that it would cut itself in a strong breeze... on top is the chicken cooked in coconut milk - they use the kampung chicken here, so not too meaty and a the joints are really tough to get through, but good flavor. Had with sweetened ice tea... this tea had a REALLY strong flavor - it was like nothing I've ever tasted before... This sight is something that is pretty common in Asia.... While the toilet looks like a normal toilet, the way you flush it is by using the bucket of water to the right...

Later that afternoon, we went to another major cultural site near Jogja - the Hindu temple of Prambanan, built in the 10th century. It's the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia... It's about a 45 minute drive out of the city (about $4.50 by Grab taxi). A lot of the temple is still rubble We got there in the late afternoon to give us time to see the site - there is also a restaurant on the site... the view from our table: It's buffet style.... greens, sate, fried shrimp, shrimp chips, some kind of beef stew... More orange juice over ice We decided to go at this time because we also we planning on seeing the Ramayana Ballet - this is a 2 hour performance where they dance the whole Ramayana story in an outdoor theater, with the lit up temples in the background. They had a huge gamelan orchestra that was the best I had heard (including in Bali).... Hanuman burns the place down... don't mess with Hanuman... After the show, you can go on the stage to meet and take your photo with the dancers

After our market morning, we went for lunch to a place for local noodles - called yammies... This place, called Yammie Pathuk is quite famous there... yammie is the noodles with chicken meat and sauce, pangsit basah is boiled dumplings, bakso is meatballs.... We also got the pangsit goreng (fried dumplings) and bakso goreng (fried meatballs - made from chicken), and 2 Jeruk (orange juice) dingin - on ice.... Keep in mind that there's about 14,100 IDR to 1 UD. The noodles with diced chicken meat on top, with boiled dumplings and soup (used to wet the noodles) with the bakso. Fried dumplings in the top plate. Fried dumplings Fried bakso

Dinner at the hotel (we were tired from waking up early and didn't feel like going back out)... Fruity drinks crunchy stuff with the drinks lumpia nasi goreng (fried rice) with starting from top going clockwise, fried chicken, fried shrimp, pickles, beef floss, beef sate, shrimp chips sambal Mie jawa (javanese noodles) with beef bakso (meatballs), slices of chicken and bok choi Breakfast the next day was similar to the past, but a new addition- Opor ayam - a different kind of chicken stew with acar and nuclear sambal We decided to get up early that morning so that we could go out to a different market in hopes of finding some mangosteen and other fruit... and success!!!! Finally!!!!! On the hunt.... Still looking.... YES!!!!!! Also got a couple mango.... Some more market shots... Back at the hotel, the upgraded fruit plate: Oh sweet baby Buddha, come to me!!!! Very juicy, but mediocre flavored mango... with the butter knife...

Breakfast the next morning before leaving to go back to Jogja... this morning, the hotel had a breakfast buffet with lots of different stations. Pineapple and dragonfruit Some type of curry with crunchy sweet bean cake on top, with sambal Beef Bakso (meatballs) in green curry with green tomato, fried tofu, shrimp chips and sambal Fried noodles with 2 types of beef floss, crunchy sweet bean cake and stewed eggplant Fried rice with beef floss, eggplant, krupuk Back in Jogja in time for lunch... we took a taxi to a place about 20-30 minutes away (cost about $1.50) to a restaurant that does Balinese Babi Guling (roast pork with rice) a few days a week. Babi guling is really a Balinese specialty (they're not Muslim there) but when we were there last year, I got food poisoning the day before we were going to have it (we were saving it for the last day) so we never got to try it... This was probably the only time I saw pork on this trip (other than in Singapore). Also, a note about taxis - I can't imagine being in Jogja before modern technology - it must have been much harder to get around. Other than at main tourist sites, there were not many taxis around... but now, there's Grab - which is like Uber in SE Asia. This was awesome - it was so easy to get a car - we never had to wait more than a minute or two and it really helped with the language barrier as I could enter the exact address of where we were going into the app. Sometimes, the driver would text us if he was going to be a minute late because of traffic, and the app would automatically translate it for us. Added bonus, I could pay the drivers in cash, which means I don't have to link a credit card and worry about my CC number floating around Indonesia, where CC fraud is a huge problem. Anyway, here's the place: Satay (pork!): The babi guling - very tasty, iwth a couple pieces of ridiculously crunch skin. We then took a taxi to a market area to look for some fruit for our room, specifically mangosteen as I hadn't had any yet... according to Google, the market was open until 3, but when we got there we found The market was technically open, meaning you could walk through it, but there was nobody home.... No mangosteens anywhere....