Seafood Delight!

In Bali's south eastern coast, the town of Nusa Dua is filled with exotic hotels and resorts with expensive 5* restaurants. There is however a street of market stalls and cheaper restaurants that serve up some decent grub for a fraction of the price. We'd decided that this night was going to be a seafood feast seeing as we were by the coast! Walking up the street, we heard live music coming out of this restaurant. Peeking in, the tables were filled, with the diners looking pretty happy, so we decided that this would be the place. The Prada restaurant on Jl Pantai Mengiat.

Looking at the menu, things got rather confusing! It was a fairly large menu with lots of options, and if your eyes are bigger than your stomach (like in my case), then you can see the problem! Finally decided, the calamari for starters, crab in chilli sauce and seafood in black pepper sauce for the mains.

The calamari was delicious. Perfectly coated with breadcrumbs, and fried golden brown. Cooked well enough to ensure the meat didn't go stringy. The tartar sauce which accompanied it was spot on. Good, easy little starter that. (There was meant to be a picture of the calamari, but before I could get my camera out, the calamari had been attacked by my girlfriend's claws!)

When we ordered the crab, we assumed we were going to get one crab in chilli sauce. Instead, there was 3 of them tasty little guys sitting on the plate! The sauce was nice and spicy and the crab was sweet and fresh. It was a bit of hard work getting the meat out of the crab, but that's the beauty of it. It was totally worth the effort!

The seafood dish looked like a bit a sizzler of mixed seafood. That was not the case. In fact, it was stir fried mix of seafood (prawns, squid, fish etc) in a perfectly balance black pepper sauce. The sauce was the kicker of this dish. It was sweet, yet spicy at the same time. The black pepper was prominent, but not overpowering. The seafood was tender and well cooked. It was absolutely delicious!

With a bottle of beer, a glass of wine and some decent live acoustic music, this place was a bit of a gem. Adding to it, when we danced to one of the songs, the waiter came over with a complimentary jug of Arak (a type of local vodka) and proceeded to get us happier!

And all in, the evening cost us US$35! Goes to show, in a place with high end restaurants and resorts, it's not too difficult to find good eats that won't cost an arm and a leg! 

Patty & Bun...Simple as!

I had walked past this place once on a Friday night and I was amazed at the queue outside! Looked like an hour or so wait, for a small, cozy little burger place. With a queue this long, and people willing to wait, must mean great food!

Patty & bun are a small, no nonsense burger joint! The tables are bunched up together so they can fit as many people in there as possible. We queued up, and were told we'd have to wait about 45 mins for a table. This was at 6pm on a Friday! Having read a few good reviews about it, decided to wait and try it out.

The service was top notch, and the menu was small and simple, burgers! Only 6 types of burgers and a few sides. But what more do you want from a burger joint! I firmly believe that a smaller menu means the chef isn't trying to do too much, and does those few things, very very well! In this case, I was definitely not wrong!

I went for the 'Smokey Robinson' burger, which was a beef patty, with cheese, tomato, lettuce, mounds of caramelised onions, bacon, ketchup, smokey P&B mayo and brioche. This is a fast food joint, so they don't waste time with plates and all. The burger comes wrapped like a take away, and its served on a metal tray.

Unwrapping the burger was interesting as the smell of melted cheese on a perfectly cooked beef patty hit your nose and makes your stomach rumble! Burgers are supposed to be messy, and this wasn't any different. The first bite is exciting, with a world of flavours hitting your palette. The patty nice and juicy, with the bacon and cheese providing the saltiness, and the mayo and ketchup bringing in the sweet! The bun very soft and perfectly cooked, there is nothing more you can ask a burger chef to do! Definitely one of the best burgers in town!

Incredible food and great service. I definitely recommend trying out this place, with the wait in the queue an extremely small price to pay for one hell of a burger!

Naga Jolokia hotness!!

This is a little pot of the world’s hottest chilli powder I bought from a stall in Borough Market.

 Now, I consider myself to be able to handle my chilli. I wouldn’t say I can handle ridiculous amounts of chilli, but a fair bit more than your average Joe! This little pot though... this pot is incredibly lethal! The weird thing is that when you open the pot to take a whiff, there isn’t much of a strong smell from afar. Bring your nose closer to it, and it’ll catch your nose and throat like nothing else! It’s a subtle kick at first, but then it just lingers around like smelly fart in an unaired room!

I’ve been using it very sparingly (as advised on the tin) and I kid you not, it really is hot. Using it in a stir fry of vegetables was the best way to get the full effect of the spice, as when you throw it into the wok, it instantly gives your nose and throat that hit of spice. And if you’re sensitive to spice, then your nose will start running too. But I believe it’s worth the few seconds of cooking pain, as the spicy taste in your wok is delicious (if you can handle it that is).

Having said that, it’s definitely worth a try just to test yourself. If you do try it, use it sparingly...very very sparingly! And don’t touch the powder with your hands. And definitely don’t touch your eyes after if you’ve touched the powder with your hands! K

Thai street kitchen...

There’s a place near Southwark tube station called Bangkok Kitchen. A place that’s in an alley way between a pub and what looks like a warehouse! I’d walked past it a couple of times and always got this sweet smell, like being hit in the face by Thailand! The place doesn’t look like much. Just one area laid out with curries and stir fries laid out ready to serve. The other side with 4 wok’s on the burners ready to cook fresh stir fried noodles or rice to order.

  

The cooks are very friendly, and always seem to be smiling! With food this good though, it’s easy to see why!

Fresh pad thai’s, pad kee mao’s and a whole lot of other thai stir fries that I cannot pronounce or remember how to spell! All the stir fries are done with either chicken, prawn or vegetables. You can see what goes in is fresh and wholesome!

This prawn pad kee mao is absolutely delicious! Thick flat noodles, vegetables, and king prawns, all tossed in with soy sauce and magic thai spices with extra chilli to give it that kick! The colours are good, and the taste is incredible.
All Thai women seem to know how to cook. Or my other theory is that they are given a secret ingredient which makes their cooking extremely delicious, that nobody else knows about.
There’s not much else to say except, definitely go try it, you won’t be disappointed!

Red Dog Saloon in deed!

After a long hard week at work (for most people I'm guessing!), it's a case of lets get some drinks and some greasy, deliciousness!
The red dog saloon is an American BBQ joint on Hoxton Square in Shoreditch. When you go to a bbq joint, what you want is a no nonsense, meat filled menu, and this place does not disappoint! They have it all... ribs, bbq'd chicken, pulled pork, burnt end sandwiches, burgers, and even some smoked blackened salmon! The only problem when you go to a place like this is that, especially for me, you feel like ordering it all! And that definitely isn't a good idea, because getting drunk on bbq'd meats will especially cloud your taste buds at one point!

So for starters, a variety of their chicken wings was in order! They do 3 flavours; original buffalo, bbq and sweet and spicy mustard glazed. all pretty decent, although not what this place is best known for! They do however, do a hot wings challenge with a sauce that's made from the naga viper chillies. I do like my spice, but doing 6 of these dangerous bastards in 10 minutes, and then having to wait 5 minutes after you've finished to let the burn torture you even more sounds like a good way of ruining the next two days of your life! I reckon, people who try it are stupid, or even more stupid!! Having said that, I did think about it, although the thought of spending the next two days on the toilet with buckets of ice and a supermarket supply of toilet roll out me off! I say this because I asked them to bring me the sauce they use in the challenge so I could taste and see for myself. It is ridiculously hot. I could muster up one bite, but 6 wings would be suicicdal!

Anyways, back to the normal, sane persons food. It was very difficult to decide what to order, but the things is, you just had a feeling that whatever you ordered would be succulent, juicy, tender and smoky goodness! After all the deliberation, decided to go with the good old American bbq classic, the St. Louis cut ribs. With a side of chips, and a bowl of chilli, you can't really go wrong can you?!

The ribs were great. Succulent and tender, with a good glaze of bbq sauce. The thing with ribs is, they have to be soft and juicy, but the outside should be slightly charred to give it some texture and help the glaze to stick onto it. I'd say these ribs do exactly that! Just one word, Yummers!

 As the food came, I had a genius idea. Take the bowl of chilli and pour it over the chips. Chilli cheese fries to go with bbq ribs. What more could you want from an American bbq?? Absolutely delicious! Just remember to hit the gym for the week before and after the meal!

Simple cooking

Try this pasta recipe for a quick, simple and absolutely delicious meal.

Ingredients:
Linguine Pasta
Spinach
Veg stock
Cream cheese
Tender stem broccoli
Button mushrooms
Garlic
Rosemary

NB: I haven't mentioned quantities because it generally depends on various factors, mainly, how hungry you are! (and how creamy or garlicky you like your food)

Method:
Bring the veg stock to a boil and add in a dollop of the cream cheese. Reduce it to a thick sauce.
Boil the pasta with some oil and salt.
Blanch the tender stem broccoli and drain.
In a separate pan on high heat toss in the mushrooms until they start to sweat. Once the water starts to boil off, add in some butter, and toss in the garlic. Continue stirring and add plenty of rosemary. Toss in the broccoli, turn heat to low and continue stirring for about 4-5 minutes.
In another pan, stir fry some onions and a clove of garlic in a drizzle of olive oil. Throw in the spinach and allow to wilt.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and then stir it into the creamy sauce. Then mix in the spinach, add salt and pepper for seasoning, and sprinkle red chilli flakes to garnish.

Serve the pasta with the mushrooms on the side.

As I said, it's very simple, quick and actually tastes like you've slaved away for hours on end! Do leave comments and let me know what you think.

Seafood in Penang!

About a month ago, I was in Malaysia, enjoying the sights and sounds of the beautiful place.
There is this one seafood restaurant in Penang that I have been to once before, and remember it as a deliciously exciting place. I say restaurant in the loosest sense of the word. Mainly because it looks like a garage, and it has a tree growing through it! But that doesn’t matter, because it serves fresh seafood, and fresh seafood is what we wanted to eat! Plus I believe places like these make mind blowing food for some odd reason!

It was quite an experience though. You get to the entrance, and are ushered toward the “kitchen”, where in front of you there’s a long line of fresh seafood on ice. Everything you want, is right there. And behind it, the chefs, cooking away so fast you’d think they were on speed! But this was what it was all about. The fact that nobody spoke any English, made this experience even more interesting. They don’t have a menu either. It was simple, you take a look at all the seafood in front of you, point to whatever you want, and then go and sit at your table. Kinda' felt like a lucky dip really!

We decided to order some clams, prawns and a couple of soft shell crabs. With absolutely no idea how they’d cook it, we took our seats and ordered a beer. At this point, what you end up doing is looking at other people’s tables, and perve on their food! Yes, it’s true, we all do it so don’t act like you don’t! Especially when you don’t really know what’s coming to your table!

Before long though, we were served with:

The crab was battered and deep fried, with a salty spice sprinkled over it with a side sauce of soy and chilli. Very simple and delicious!

These bad boys were ridiculously huge in size! With the shells on, they were stir fried in plenty of spices with a generous serving of soy sauce. I tried to figure out exactly what was in there, but the truth is, all I could taste was deliciousness! Plus I think they went down in 3 minutes flat, so all I can tell you is...YUMMY!

Oh my...these clams. They were doused in garlic. Stir fried with spinach, chilli, soy sauce and some sort of magic spices that aren’t known to the world outside of Penang! I’d describe these clams as perfect, however the words used by my partner were, “Oh my, this has ruined clams for me! I don’t believe I’ll have clams this good again!”. This may sound like an exaggeration, although, they really were orgasmic!! If you've had great food before, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If food hasn't given you such a feeling before, then I believe you haven't lived!!

In case you were wondering, this place is called, Weld Quay Seafood Restaurant, in Penang, Malaysia. Go and try it if you're prepared to be amazed!