KennethT

We got to the region a little different this year - we didn't go by our typical way by EVA airlines connecting through Taipei because it would have required an extra flight as EVA only flies to Jakarta, so we'd have to change planes again to get to Jogja. Instead, we flew by Singapore Airlines direct NY to Singapore, and then flew by Air Asia direct to Jogja. Singapore Air is a great airline and the food was great (shown on the Airline food thread), tons of entertainment options and the staff were warm and very helpful. My only issue is the scheduling - the flight leaves NY at about 10:30AM and gets into Sing. at about 5:30PM the next day. By leaving at 10:30AM, there is basically no chance of sleeping on that flight, except maybe for the last couple hours before landing. Also, by landing so late in the day, it's hard to make any connections, so we stayed in Singapore for 1 night (not really a hardship for us as we love Singapore) and left the next morning. The flight home though leaves at 11:30PM, which leaves plenty of time for a connection from wherever you're coming from, and then we had about 6-7 hours of hanging out in the city... One final interesting thing about the flight - because of the issues in Middle East right now, it's recommended that airlines avoid flying over the region if possible, so SA's route basically took us straight north out of NY, over the North Pole (or really close to it), then down through eastern Russia, China, Thailand, etc. Northern edge of Canada (I think)... Landing in Singapore was as efficient as ever - and we were finished checking into our hotel in the city center about an hour after landing. Since we were really tired, we decided to have dinner in the food court of the mall around the corner from our hotel: The Ion Center mall... Entrance to the food court The food court is set up like an indoor, air conditioned hawker center with tons of options. We decided on some Prawn Noodles: and Katong laksa, which was rich with coconut milk and shrimp paste... delicious: In the corner of the last photo, you'll see our drink of choice in Singapore, lime juice - really a limeaid. Edit: just found a photo of the lime juice....

It's that time of year again, after just getting back from our summer vacation. This year, we went to Yogyakarta which is a city in central Java, Indonesia. The title of the topic comes from the fact that most people there call the city Jogjakarta (pronounced jōg-ja-karta), although some people (depending on background) do call it yōg-ya-karta. This is a special place in Indonesia - Indonesia is a mostly Muslim country, however, the region around Jogjakarta was declared a special region as it is also a Sultanate. It was the original home to the ruler of the island of Java, and once democracy came along, the Sultan still lives there and has some kind of power in the region, as well as with the government as a whole... It's confusing - and I would say that I'm still a bit confused, but that's ok. Anyway, all this leads this region to be called the cultural and culinary capital of the island of Java, the most populous island in the archipelago, some of the reason it is extremely popular with domestic tourists - I'd say the vast majority of the tourists there are from other parts of Indonesia, with the balance being mostly Australians, and some Europeans and very few North Americans. Food-wise, we found Jogja interesting because it is the first Muslim area we have seen in SE Asia, which means (with very few exceptions) no pork. There are tons of chicken dishes - many using what is called kampung chickens, or extremely free range chickens which tend to be relatively scrawny, a little tough but with a lot of flavor. There is also some beef, some mutton/goat and fish. Like a lot of Indonesian food, the use of sambal(s) is key - many times you will have a selection of sambal that you would use to accent or add spiciness to a dish. Some of these sambal are crazy hot... Another thing interesting thing about being a mostly Muslim area is the seemingly ever-present call to prayer. In the city, typically 5 times a day, the Mosques will have their best singer sing the call to prayer (which lasts about 20 minutes) over the loudspeaker systems. If you are in an area with a few mosques, you will hear 3 different versions all going at the same time. Some of these calls are at inopportune times - like 1:30AM - so most hotels provide ear plugs so you won't be woken up in the middle of the night. Like we do on all our trips, we take Benadryl as a sleep aid to help get us over the jetlag... so we never needed the earplugs as we were sleeping very soundly to say the least! I think I'll sum this up by talking about how relatively inexpensive this city is. It is probably the cheapest area that we have seen on our travels so far - you can get a luxury hotel room for about $50 per night, and a 40 minute taxi ride across the city doesn't cost more than $3-4, at the current rate of exchange. Local food is really cheap too. I took some photos of menus to show pricing - keep in mind that the current rate of exchange is about IDR14,100 to US$1. What can be much more expensive is some touristy things - foreign tourists are charged a different rate from domestic tourists, and in some cases will have a separate entrance (and usually a much shorter, or non-existent, line).

When I had more time, I've grown a decent amount of food in my Manhattan apt... Why should your building care?

I believe that it doesn't really have much to do with the airline itself. I'm not sure, but I think airlines contract out the food service to companies in each locale they offer service. So, for example, I just flew Singapore Air from NY to Singapore direct - the food was very different on the two flights - so they're not bringing food from Singapore to NY for the return trip, they're getting it from a NY based supplier. Some airlines are better than others probably because they use different service providers or pay a higher price - as in you get what you pay for.

Oh mangosteens, how I've missed thee!!! And, unfortunately, you'll be absent from my life now for another year (at minimum)

I almost forgot. We flew Sing Air's regional airline from Yogyakarta (Indonesia) to Singapore - about a 2 hour flight... This was served as breakfast: Fried rice noodles (in some kind of chili sauce with shrimp paste) with seafood. I was nervous about this, but was extremely surprised - the seafood (calamari and small shrimp) were perfectly cooked. I imagine they were raw before being cooked while the dish heated.

Also, to give an idea of otgher book the cook offerings, my wife had a decent nasi biryani for dinner...

The peas and crackers are actually 2 items.... dried wasabi peas or a package of crackers... why they put them together like that on the menu is anyone's guess...

Singapore Air: Singapore to New York (Newark) direct. On this leg, they had the "Book the Cook" available. This is an interesting feature that lets you preselect your meals in advance - I selected mine a couple months ago... the nice thing is that this gives you much more choice - there are about 8 choices for dinner and another 8 more for breakfast. Menu - note that they also have the standard choices for those who didn't bother booking the cook. @liuzhou may note the dessert in the last photo. I asked for a chicken tikka wrap and they brought me a pudding " just in case"... I didn't try it as my corn aversion is only slightly less than his. My dinner - hainanese chicken rice complete with chili sauce and sweet soy sauce. Chicken was juicy and tender and rice was great, but the bok choy was overcooked. Came with: Roll with lurpack butter and a very tasty chocolate mousse. My breakfast - dim sum Before opening, check out the croissant - I've had worse croissants in France - it was also served warm. Check the interior: The dim sum Siu nai, har gow, chicken and mushroom and also rice with chicken mushrooms and chestnuts The aforementioned corn pudfing The chicken tikka wrap - quite tasty - I had a few of them.

I flew Emirates once- they just started their direct NY to Milan route and had crazy cheap fares as a promotion. It was several years ago and don't remember the details, but my impression was favorable.

Dinner with a view...

What a great story. I'm at a loss for words. Thank you for bringing us along.

I just saw this now... What a great story! I would have loved to see your mother's expression when she realized what lengths people went through for her. Can't wait to read more...

There are a lot of topics that go through many methods for making super French fries... If I wasn't traveling and only using a pita cell phone, I'd link a few... Maybe someone else can help?

In Singapore airport... Shrimp nuggets on a stick

Actually we were in the back of the plane. Thus flight only has biz and prem economy. We were PE and got a great deal about a year ago. It was like $600 each way.

Singapore Air NY to Singapore non-stop (about 17 hours)... 2 meals, a pizza bread, and various snacks/sandwiches in between... Pork panang curry Shrimp in tarragon cream with pretzel roll

I have no experience with milling flour, but when grinding other materials, it is normal practice to start coarse and progressively grind finer and finer. If you are concerned with heat, you may need to wait between passes for the flour to cool before grinding again.

Hopefully you'll be posting some of those erotic exotic dishes.... can we get a preview of where you're headed?

I've always seen la lot translated as betel leaves, but they are also called "wild betel leaves" and are completely different from the thick betel leaves used for chewing. As liuzhou said, they are distantly related - the leaves for eating are piper sarmentosum, while the ones for chewing are piper betle. I can find the sarmentosum leaves here in NYC on rare occasion if I go to a thai store... in Thailand, one of the uses is mieng kum which is a snack that uses the raw betel leaf as the mouth delivery device.... One time I was planning on making mieng kum and was talking to the owner of my typical thai store (he's from Chiang Mai) who usually stocks the betel leaves - he was out of stock, but he recommended using spinach leaves as a substitute... it's not really close either, but I think it would be slightly closer than lettuce.

I''m no expert, but I"m assuming that the internal temperature of the baked shortbread would be high enough to eliminate anything growing, correct? Do you know what the internal temp is when fully baked?

That's hilarious - I was 2 doors down from you this weekend - we went to the fish taco place for lunch on Saturday!

Here's an interesting study done by Univ of Michigan that tested how the amount of light during the seedling stage of basil affected the yield at harvest. Seemed like a well controlled study - although, as the article even admits, this may be crop specific. For instance, we know that basil loves tons of light - it's hard to give basil too much light, as opposed to other crops (like strawberries) that do worse under high light conditions, even with temperature/humidity/etc. the same... https://www.producegrower.com/article/lighting-basil-seedlings/

Wow - I'm not usually a dessert person, but those look and sound amazing - I love the idea of savory desserts - I'd love to try that fenugreek cake!

We order in quite a bit. I wish we didn't have to, but work/time pressures are what they are... so, if I don't want to eat at 10PM and go to bed at 10:30, that's it. Sometimes we use Caviar, which gives us access to restaurants that wouldn't normally deliver to our area. If getting delivery from a few blocks away, personally, I like to call the restaurant and order directly, but my wife (who hates to use the telephone) usually winds up using Seamless. I have noticed that some restaurants charge slightly higher prices on their Seamless menus than they would if you called directly... but in general, I justify using the apps by saying that if I didn't order from this restaurant using the app, I'd probably order from somewhere else. So, even though they are subjected to fees, they're getting an order they might not get otherwise. Plus, I can't imagine that any business would belong to an association like this that would cause them to lose money. Sure, they may not make as much profit as if you called directly, but if they were losing money on each sale, why bother using the service to begin with?