KennethT

The last time I looked at the Kanoyama's menu, it was actually a kampachi collar rather than hamachi.

I'll have to check it out next weekend when I'm there again. I haven't paid much attention to them as I can't imagine they'd be very good. One day when China opens up we'd love to get back to our list of Chinese destinations - quite a few of them are in the south - maybe we could take a detour!

I now see a couple different brands of Luosifen in my local HMart, a large Korean (and other Asian) grocery store chain.

Speaking of which, since it was a long holiday weekend, of course we stopped by to pick up some snacks... Kuih Angku with mung bean filling. I don't know why we got this one. Every time we've had it in SE Asia we've never really been fans. The outside always reminds me of those wax red lips candy that was a big thing when I was a kid. And I'm not a huge fan of the mung bean filling - I wish they had the peanut ones. Serimuka gula melaka - palm sugar and pandan flavored custard with coconut sticky rice. This was amazing. Serimuka pandan - pandan flavored custard with coconut sticky rice Talam gula melaka - palm sugar custard and salted coconut. I love how the occasional salt in the coconut offsets the palm sugar.

I've never been down to Kuih cafe. One day, but it's a schlep and Lady Wong is dangerously close to me now. I agree with you though - I've been there now every weekend for the past few weeks, getting progressively more each week! I don't know why they hide their address on their website, but if you look at their FAQs you'll find a Google Maps link. Why they couldn't just put their address right next to it?

Very nice! You need one of those mini-peels for rotating in the oven.

We had the soft shell the last time we were there, but I haven't yet pulled the trigger on the hamachi collar, not that it hasn't called to me but I'm afraid C may not be into it, even though many times she surprises me. What did you think of the sushi you got?

I really dislike it when people try to be helpful and "clean up" an area that only I use. That's when I can never find anything!

Very nice. what was the sauce with the mahi bites and shrimp? It looks to be the same.... The blue and white bottle is tequila - Clase Azul.

Can you get candlenuts in your area? They're great for adding texture to curries and soups. What is the Oaxacan hot chocolate? Is it brewed from roasted cocoa beans like coffee or made with melted Mexican chocolate?

I'm sorry to hear about that dinner - it's always disappointing when you're there and have a limited number of meals and one goes really wrong - not to mention the expense. I love watching and listening to parrotfish crunching the coral!

Beautiful photos - thanks so much for taking us along on your trip! I don't know if you know the answer to this but I'm curious - I've seen escargot on a few menus now - I assume they're imported rather than local, right?

One day I will be making this - I am sore missing a really good Katong Laksa... Do you make yours from scratch or like a premade paste? Also, where are the laksa leaves?!? (j.k. - I know they're not easy to find!)

I'll definitely check this out at some point...

@weinoo I second @Shelby - those potatoes look great. Can you be more specific with the method?

Vietnamese lemongrass chicken, made with chicken thighs marinated with lemongrass/garlic/ginger/black pepper/thai chilli/fish sauce/soy sauce/MSG/turmeric

I'm curious to check this out: Who knew Ornellaia made olive oil? The packaging is ridiculously nice - the box it came in is heavy textured cardboard.

Let me know how it goes - I'm not used to writing recipes - I wrote this just to keep a record for myself for the next time I make it, but I'm curious how an outsider will find my sometimes nebulous instructions. Also let me know if something isn't clear before you get started....

That is true. I wound up back there yesterday and picked up 2 others - I didn't take a photo because they didn't look so good as we walked from there to Christopher St. to pick up some tea before heading back home and they looked a little worse for wear by then.... but they tasted great - both were fantastic.

Thanks - I love this dish. Now that I have a bunch of pastes done, I can make it a lot more often. My dried Indonesian bay leaves seem to be pretty similar to normal bay leaves, but they're a bit bigger, so maybe use more of them? Maybe 4-5 normal dried bay leaves? For candlenuts, the closest I can think of would be macadamias. Candlenuts don't have much flavor, but they act as a sort of thickener. They're commonly used in Indonesian/Malaysian/Nyonya curries. The hardest to sub would be the galangal, because there really is nothing else really like it. You could probably just leave it out and it will still be tasty, but it won't be the same... but if you've never had the original, you won't know what you're missing! ha!

I've had this dish in several different places in Indonesia so far - several different parts of Bali and in Yogyakarta (on the island of Java). All of them have been pretty similar and I think this is pretty close to what I made most recently, although after some internet research, it seems that in other parts of Indonesia it would not be uncommon to add coconut milk. This soup is made in a similar way to Indonesian/Malaysian/Nyonya curries - you make a spice paste which is then fried in oil for a while to bring out the aromatics to which a liquid is added. The ratio of liquid to spice paste yields curry or soup. Also, like so many foods of the region, it's open to customization - some places add stuff to the soup that others won't... like hard boiled egg. One of the best versions of this soup I had was in Yogyakarta - my hotel had an Indonesian breakfast buffet and one area was a DIY soto ayam station. At the right is a cauldron of simmering soup, and everything on the left is up to you. The basics of what are added are chicken meat, shredded cabbage, mung bean noodles (aka cellophane noodles) and fried shallots. And of course, being Indonesia, there's always at least one sambal to add some heat. The base of this soup is chicken stock. My recipe below uses 4C of homemade chicken stock (unsalted). The stock gets simmered with aromatics, seasoned, and the chicken is then poached in the stock, removed, cooled and picked into shreds. Aromatics removed and the prefried spice paste (rempah) are added. It's not really practical to make a couple tablespoons of rempah, so the recipe below is for several meals for 2 people or so and the rest is frozen for later - I put it in a a ziplock bag, press into a flat sheet about 1cm thick - this way I can break off as much as I want while still frozen. Also, when I say this is for 2 people, there's one caveat - my wife is not a huge fan of soup - she loves this dish, but only has maybe 1/3 of the liquid that I'd have. So, with that being said... Rempah: About 1 inch galangal (fresh or frozen) About 1 inch ginger 5 cloves garlic 4 candlenuts About 1 heavy Tablespoon coriander seeds, dry fried until frangrant, then ground About 1 inch fresh turmeric (or about 1/2 - 3/4t ground dried turmeric) 6 shallots Blend the rempah ingredients in a blender, or ideally pound in a mortar. I typically blend 3/4 of the way, then finish it in the mortar. Fry the paste in a couple tablespoons of oil (I use rice bran oil) in a wok over medium heat to start, then turn it down to keep it from burning. Stir contantly. You know the paste is done when it looks quite dry and there is no liquid left and the oil separates back out at least partially - so it actually looks like it's frying. It should be quite fragrant. Soup: 4C chicken stock 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 2-3 pieces and bruised 5-6 kaffir lime leaves 2-3 daun salam (Indonesian bay) leaves if dried, 5-6 if fresh 1 chicken breast Season with about 2t salt (start with less, and add until it tastes right) plus 1/2t MSG Simmer the chicken stock with the aromatics for about 5 minutes, then add the chicken breast, cover and simmer until cooked through. Remove the chicken breast to cool, and discard the aromatics Taste the remaining stock for seasoning - it should be pretty strong as the noodles will dilute it a bit. Add about 2T of the rempah to the soup and simmer for about 5 minutes. While that's going, shred the chicken breast and prep the bowls with soaked/drained cellophane noodles, cabbage, chicken, fried shallot and cilantro/green onion. Add the boiling soup to the bowls. Garnish with sambal and a slice of lime.

Today I had a delivery of yet a different mango variety from Fresh Direct - this one was a Francine mango - which after a bit of research, turns out is a Haitian variety. I don't know if these were Haitian grown though. What I do know about this mango was that it was, for lack of a better word, ok. Pretty good. It's a lot of "not"s... it's not very sweet, not acidic, not fibrous (but that's a good thing), not especially fragrant - there was a slight coconut/florality, but it was really slight. A decent sized mango - ripens to a yellow color. I would have liked it to get a bit riper, but it was already a little soft. Vibrant orange flesh

Indonesian chicken soup - soto ayam... I think I'll put what I did in RecipEgullet so I can remember what to do for next time... I didn't have any cabbage, so I used some baby bok choi (which is a type of cabbage)...

Insert groan button here!!!

Are you crazy!?! Of course! Electricity and water don't mix well.