Indulge Cafe - Jalan Kuchai Lama (Revisited)

Keen in western and local food with authentic dessert, here with the place again Indulge Cafe. Has been visited for few times, cos of fews reason to bring me back again. The price were reasonable with huge portion. Beside that, the taste was fabulous! It's kind of a magic food from the magic chef's cuisine. The cuisine here, lead me to another category of culinary level. Extremely appreciate the food.

Mint Bliss, RM3.90

Refreshing drink. Base with soda water, mixed with mint leave and lime. Arhhh.....awake me from the first sip

  

Cream of Trio Field Mushroom Soup served with Garlic-herb Bread, RM5.90

Home-made mushroom soup full with cream base, crowded with mushroom cube. Not forget a piece of crispy garlic-herb bread it went well with the soup. You will love it!

Caesae Salad, RM8.90

It's a must of a salad to open-up ur appetite before enter to your main course

Seafood Alio-olio, RM14.90

Gosh!!!! Surprisely amazing! I never ever had such a palatable pasta in my whole life. The pasta totally suck inside with the olive oil and garlic smell and some chili flake to enhance the taste. The freshness of the seafood consume together with the pasta. Encore~~

Club Sandwich,RM9.90

Toasted sandwich layered with cheddar cheese, grilled chicken breast, crispy chicken strips, fried egg, butterhead lettuce with fat fries. Nice combination stuff with colors

German Bratwurst & Twister Sausage served with Sauerkraut and Mashed Potatoes

German Bratwurst more to juicy sausage and twister is kind of cruncy sausage. Hence, respect for the shop sincere to customers, original mashed potatoes, mamamia....you would found real small cube of potatoes inside the mashed potatoes.

Mille Crepe, RM7.50

Signature for the shop and MUST try! Layer by layer of the crepe covered by the light cream. Adore the light cream, it encourage your mouth can't stop on it. Beside that, the crepe strong of egg smell.

Cake Counter

Temper yourself for the dessert and dont miss out!

Cozy mini library provided daily newspaper and updated magazine

Entrance

Indulge Cafe, Jalan Kuchai Lama

BLKA-0-11, Kuchai Business Park,

NO 2 , Jln /127, Jalan Kuchai Lama

58200 Jalan Kuchai Lama

03-79840866

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沈记 - Tuaran Mee

Went to this stall for breakfast with my father on a sunday. Used to come to this stall often before.
The place is actually located the 1st floor of Inanam Pasar , there has few stall which selling foods as well.







The taste is always as great as it's origin.
The price is just for RM4 per plate and the quantity 100% enough to fill your stomach. Hehehe :D

2010 teacher's day practices / behind the scene

a day went back to school

went back to school during students club activities. Found my friends who are in photography club and snapped some plants photos.

















done with my humble 17-55mm lens :)

Vegetarian Dashi for Miso Soup

(kombu and arame seaweed)

Japanese cuisine exudes flavor, texture, and beauty...which is probably why I've never felt adequately versed to do much of it in my own kitchen. However, newly inspired by a recent lunch at a Japanese restaurant, I decided that miso soup might be a fairly un-intimidating place to begin.

Several years ago, I worked in a vegetarian restaurant where we served miso soup. At this restaurant, the method was as follows: the cook would pour boiled water into a large pot, toss in tofu cubes, sliced green onion, and some wakame seaweed. She would keep the water warm over a bain-marie, and just before service began, drop in a huge ladle of red miso. Apparently, it is essential not to cook the miso; this will not only spoil the flavor, but also alter the healthy properties.

That soup always lacked flavor in my opinion. I often ate it on my lunch break, but would usually add soy sauce and vinegar to give it a boost. That particular way of making miso soup was missing an essential element: a stock base.

With a bit of reading online, I learned that the traditional way to prepare miso is by adding it to a dashi stock. I’m sure most people already know this, but from what I read, there are a few variations of dashi that form the foundation for many Japanese dishes.

I read that the type of dashi commonly used for miso is made from kombu seaweed and bonito flakes (dried tuna). I was glad to find that out. If you want to keep vegan/vegetarian in a Japanese restaurant, it’s probably a good idea to ask whether they use any fish ingredients in their dashi broth.

For obvious reasons, I wasn’t interested in preparing a traditional-style dashi with bonito. Instead, I found this recipe, which suggests a vegetarian workaround for dashi stock by substituting either bean sprouts or mushrooms for the bonito. I went with the bean sprouts in this case; I thought it was an interesting idea and was curious to find out what sort of flavor the sprouts would impart…

...the dashi turned out very mild.

And as for the soup?...

I didn't have to add any soy sauce or vinegar to give it flavor; it was fairly tasty.  But all said, I think I have a ways to go before I achieve that perfect bowl of miso soup that is subtley rich and beautifully balanced in flavor. In future, I think I'll be trying out some different brands of miso paste--as I'm sure they are not all created equal--and I'll work on producing a more flavorful dashi base.

Here's what I made:

6 cups vegetarian dashi (kombu  and bean sprouts)
6 tablespoons miso (mixture of red and white)
firm tofu cut into small cubes and green onion finely chopped for garnish
1 cup arame seaweed (wakame is traditional, but I had arame in the cupboard)

Roseann LaPonte

Rosanne Tobin

2010 STTSS Teacher's Day performance

These are the actual day photos, will post some the practicing session photos as well. Please forgive my amateurish photo.

Fava Tips

My first taste of fava leaves, or tips as they are also called, was about five years ago, when a woman I worked with at the time shared some from her garden. Through the generosity of one or two other kind gardeners, I have munched on them once or twice since then, but haven't had the opportunity to eat any from my own garden until now. I'm growing favas for the first time this year, and although my primary goal is a bean harvest, I wanted to sample some leaves in the meantime. If you've never had fava tips before, they are similar to pea shoots: tender with a fresh leguminous taste.
 
The plants are just beginning to set their flowers, so in the interest of not disturbing them too much, I only harvested a few leaves. They made perfectly bite-sized rolls for snacking, filled with nut cheese and various other little treats such as cherry tomatoes, kalamatas, and shallot scapes. The rolls with olive and scapes were especially tasty.

If you have access to fava leaves, don't let this seasonal treat pass you by. The leaves are perfect for salads;  eat them raw to best capture the fresh flavor. I've also seen recipes for them in pesto, wilted salads, or stir fry...in much the same way you might use spinach greens or pea shoots.

The nut cheese filling is adapted from a recipe for lemon-pignoli "ricotta", which I use all the time. It is perfect for lasagne or any time you want a ricotta-like filling.

Walnut-pignoli filling (~ 1/2 cup):

1/2 cup raw walnuts
1/2 cup raw pine nuts
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Soak the walnuts and pine nuts in water for an hour (or more if you want), strain off the water and blend with the rest of ingredients. You may want to add a little water to adjust the consistency.

All in all, favas seem to be a pretty easy-going plant. In my garden, they are in part shade, and even so,  have been growing at a rate of at least 2-3 inches a week. The soil is not particularly rich either; the bed they're in is native soil, which tends to be clay, acidic, and not terribly nutritious. Amending with compost and growing the odd cover crop, I've been able to improve the soil quality of this bed somewhat: it started out as predominantly clay, but now is more of a clay-loam.

All going well, I'm expecting a bean harvest in mid- to late-June. After, (hopefully) harvesting the beans, I'll cut down the stalks and turn them into the soil as green manure.

FAVA UPDATE: Some of the first flowers opened this afternoon. They look like bumble bees:

 fava blossoms

Roseann LaPonte

Rosanne Tobin

Blueberry Cheese Cake - Etoile Hotel Equatorial KL

Was non special occation, here with a bluberry cheese cake. Hence, here with few question keep asking "whose birthday?....." Gosh, that was non of you birthday, but just for pleasure and dessert moment only. Let's get enjoy this cake after our dinner.

Blueberry Cheese Cake

I adore the decoration. Bottom with the biscuit base and thickness of cheese, top with bluberry fruit. So lovely.

Etoile Bistro - Hotel Equatorial Kuala Lumpur

Jalan Sultan Ismail,

50200 Kuala Lumpur

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=1854941232005499552&q=hotel+equatorial+Kuala+Lumpur&hl=zh-CN

Strawberry, Rhubarb & Frozen Banana Dessert + Dinners in Review

I've been waiting patiently for local organic rhubarb to come onto the scene here, and this past week, I finally got my wish. (The strawberries are still from California, but it shouldn't be too much longer!) I tossed ideas around for a couple days about what to do with the rhubarb...I was tempted to do something savory, but ended up with the simple combo of  rhubarb compote, frozen bananas, and fresh strawberries.

Photo-wise, I was disappointed in that the rhubarb did not appear prominent, but there are much bigger problems in the world than that! Originally, I meant to fold the rhubarb into the frozen banana, but I forgot, so I placed it underneath instead.

I stewed the rhubarb with a small amount of water and agave to taste...roughly 2 tablespoons agave to 6 stalks of rhubarb...it came out fairly tart. Separately,  I blended 4 large frozen bananas, 3 pitted dates, and  ~ 1/2 cup oat milk in my food processor until it was smooth ( I think you can see where I dipped my finger in for a taste :) :

  

Then spooned the frozen mixture into open-ended molds and popped them  into the freezer to set up:

I let it set for only 20 minutes or so; I didn't want it to freeze through and start to turn icy. Incidentally, this probably wasn't the best way to mold up frozen things because de-molding is a little tricky...I think there exist plastic molds designed for frozen desserts that you simply pull away from the frozen stuff once it's set. In this case, I  got the molds off by wrapping a hot cloth around each mold for about 30 - 40 seconds and they slid right off without hassle.

I sat the frozen banana on a bed of rhubarb compote and then came the fun part of decorating it.  The result was fresh-tasting, not too sweet, and full of fruity and rhubarby flavor and textures.

 

 
I'm not exactly prolific when it comes to blogging--I'm a sporadic blogger at best,  but this week I did manage to snap some pics of our dinners, and here's a little review.

Monday: BBQ tofu with baked yam, baked potato, and red chard. It was a feast!

Tuesday: Vegetable soup... I used veggies that I have around most of the time: green cabbage, potato, carrot, celery, parsley, leek, garlic, and some garbanzo and kidney beans.

Wednesday: Pasta! This is one of my favorite quick meals: Saute cherry tomatoes with  slivered garlic and a pinch of red pepper flakes until the tomatoes start to "pop" from the heat, then deglaze the pan with plenty of white wine, add some reserved pasta water and salt and pepper to taste, toss with spinach pasta and top with fresh parsley. Simple and flavorful.

Pho Thursday: Vegan Phở. I've never had the traditional kind, but when I saw  Naomi Rose of  The Gluttonous Vegan Loves You post this recipe, I was literally salivating, so I had to try it. I followed the recipe to the 't', except that I added the miso at the end of cooking, and I didn't have any cinnamon stick on hand so subbed some red chilis and ginger instead for the spice sachet:

And GV is right, the house does smell heavenly while this is simmering. My pic doesn't do it justice...definitely check out the original...this was aromatic, noodley, very satisfying to taste and fun to make....easily this week's favorite meal in our house. Thanks Naomi Rose!

I'll sign off with some of my happy little viola and pansy friends...they always make me feel brighter when I look at them: