Thai Lemon Grass

I have been to 3 Thai restaurants in Glasgow and amongst all these, Lemon Grass ranks atop the Thai food kingdom. Don't be too quick to dismiss it off as another Thai restaurant that has modified its flavours to suit the western palette. Truth be told, there was something uniquely Thai about the food we had that night.

We started off with a nice house sampler consisting of chicken satay, fish cakes, Grilled pork neck, spring rolls and prawn cakes. All of which were impressive. The.chicken satay breast were moist and matched well with the fragrant peanut sauce. The pork neck was my favourite. So well grilled on the outside with a moist pink centre.

The thai chicken coconut soup was a little like a diluted down version of thai red curry with coconut milk. Tasty but not attention grabbing.

For mains, we had a stir fried roast duck with chilli paste. Never heard of this dish but it tasted nice. Certainly reminded me of something that I might have had in Thailand.

The thai green curry packed a good punch of spices. Just wished it was spicier. I like it atomic hot haha

Finally the star of the night was this deep fried seabass topped with a spicy mango salad. Fresh juicy chunks of meat that has been deboned by the chef for your eating convinience. If you like something tangy and sweet, you'll like this.

This was as close to Thai food that I would ever get in Glasgow and I applaud the efforts of the owners in their efforts of trying to recreate the same atmosphere in their interior designs and attention of garnishes in their food.

I paid more than what I usually would for food today but what I had was satisfying and I looked forward to a good excuse to splurge on something nice at this restaurant again.

Thai Lemongrass
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24 Renfrew Street

Glasgow, G2 3BW

Phone: 0141 331 1315

p.S : I have been relegated to doing monthly restaurant reviews with my work ahhaha. oh wells.

Jsn's Birthday @ 2 Fat Ladies !!!

Hey Hey, This is the first Time I actually feature ppl's faces on this blog. Anyway... We were at 2 fat ladies to celebrate Jsn's 25th Silver Jubillleeeee Birthday !!!. It was meant to be a suprise haha but he turned up before half the crowd arrived. Way to GO Singaporean PUNCTUALITY!!!!


THere was a choice of the pre theatre menu (2 Courses at 16pds or 3 courses at 18pds) or the a la carte menu which had more expensive items.

I can't recall what this was but I suspect it might be Pear, celery and goats’ cheese tart.





Pan seared, hand dived scallops, macleod of stornoway black pudding, cauliflower puree, roast beetroot and sherry dressing. This was available as a starter or main course

Steamed loch etive mussels, white wine and garlic cream. I really like the mussels here. So fresh so good !!!

Prawn Rissoto (White balance fails -_-")





Oven roasted pollack with cabbage, bacon and chervil cream

And here's my dish..... Two fat ladies fish platter. COnsisting of 3 fishes. Red mullet, Coley and ... Seabass... All well done and tasted full of fishy freshness. I just wished the skin was alittle little more crisp.

Roasted veges to accompany the mains. The waitress refilled the bowl.





Rum and raisin milk chocolate pot





Two fats’ trio of creme brulees (kiwi, orange and passionfruit). Basically creme Brulee topped with fruits. Not exactly what I was hoping for.


The star of the night has to be Jsn's Birthday Cake made specially by Elne


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This was seriously amazingly good. It was like sponge fingers topped with a raspberry, lychee rose flavoured fruit jam at the based and on topped of that.... a fresh cheesy desert cream... topped up with more raspberries on top and surrounded by more sponge fingers.

Seriously good... You are one lucky man Jsn.

Two Fat Ladies City Centre
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118A Blythswood Street

Glasgow, G2 4EG

t: 0141 847 0088
http://www.twofatladiesrestaurant.com/citycentre

Dinner at the Taymouth Restaurant, Kenmore Hotel

Hi all, I am back from my trip to the highlands. We paid the oldest Inn in Scotland, currently known as Kenmore Hotel, a visit. Despite being totally underdressed after the river rafting trip, nothing was stopping us from entering the "Atas" restaurant.

I had a smoked salmon for a starter. It was an unusual choice for me as I normally shy away from smoked salmon when Aa attempts to offer me. Well, this one tasted pretty good and paired well with the freshly baked bread.

For the main course, I had a roasted sea bream with a olive and tomato dressing. There wasn't much to rave about this dish . It was pretty bland and dependent on the fish in order to achieve a nice flavour. A fresh water Sea bream just did not hit me in the right spot that a sea fish would normally do. Otherwise, I felt the execution of the dish was perfect. The meat was delicate yet not powdery and the aroma from the thyme had infused sufficiently into the flesh.

I did not actually have this dish. K had it and it was the best choice for that evening in terms of dessert. This creme brulee was in fact cold and not the hot version that you would get at other restaurants. Its smooth texture and vanilla taste left me craving for more.

Kenmore Hotel
The Square, Kenmore,
PH15 2NU

SIsters

We had dinner recently at The Sisters located on 36 Kelvingrove street in celebration of L's Birthday. This award winning best city restaurant in 2008 serves up traditional scottish food in a really nice contemporary setting. With all the hype and the rave compliments from Aa and C about this place, I was looking forward to a nice meal.

I had the homemade fishcakes with lemon and chives mayonaise. Fried fishcakes never really appeal to me but seeing that it was homemade in an award winning restaurant, I decided to risk it anyway. Well, it was not bad but not superb. The fried pairs didn't have the taste or smell of frozen fish and tasted reasonably seafoodish. The mayo that acompanied it tasted quite nice and wasn't too acidic. Overall it was a nice starter but not mind blowing.

I wasn't sure what this dish was as i didn't have it but I suspect it might be a Scottish chicken leg with Dingwall haggis, neeps & tatties & whiskey cream. I had a taste of the sauce which was very appealing to me.

This was what I had the beef confit with mashed potatos in a truffle oil. Man... I totally did not expect a beef confit to be this. The part of it which strike me was its texture. If i had known that the texture was so delicate like shredded beef pounded together I would have given it a miss. Oh well, I chowed down the whole plate anyway cause the sauce was so beefily good and the mash was smooth and was scented well with the truffle oil. Had it not been for the sauce, I might have just gave up eating it.

Creme brulee with a dallop of ice cream. Couple of the peeps had it. I didn't haha. As for me

Ta Da...Honeycomb ice cream with crushed meringue & butterscotch sauce.. Oh my... this was so sweet... I like icecream and sweet stuff but this was overkill man... My BM just shot passed 11mmol. I just wished they would have cut back on the butterscotch sauce and let the vanilla icecream gently sweeten the meringue as it melted. Oh well... I finished it anyway LOL!.

Finally, a nice caterpillar cake from M and S to finish off a wonderful dinner. Happy Birthday L!!!!

Overall, A nice meal but I was expecting more from an award winning restaurant. Will give it another chance someday.

The Sisters Kelvingrove
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36 Kelvingrove Street
Glasgow
G3 7RZ
0141 564 1157
http://www.thesisters.co.uk/



PS: will not be posting for the next 3 days as I will be up in the highlands. See you soon.

Dinner at China Blue

A long post deserves a more lengthy story. Its 130pm now so I'll rush through a bit of stuff. Firstly, its the first post with more than 1 picture in it which means my ordinary flickr acct is going to burst its limit pretty soon. 2ndly its the first restaurant meal that I am posting. 3rdly, I had the company of a fantastic group of friends consisting of, WY, YR, M, Aa, C, K and Py.

A little history on China Blue passed down through generations of seniors who have survived on it as a weekend staple. Originally known as Blue Ginger located along Sauchiehall street, this little restaurant famous for its Malacca Seafood (Ma Liu Jia hai xian) has undergone numerous changes to become known as China Blue on Renfrew Street today (Next to KFC).

So the first dish here is yam ring (Fad Pu or something along those lines in Cantonese) filled with the Malacca Seafood. Aa has been craving for this dish in a very long time and having been dissapointed umpteen times in other restaurants, he finally has his wish. I found the yam to be really nicely deepfried. It wasn't as salty as i hoped it to be, afterall yam is really bland. Maybe its because the saltiness from the malacca seafood was meant to compliment it but unfortunately it failed on its part. Overall I say this dish was a nice change from the usual dishes that we always order. I am looking forward to trying it again.

You must be wondering what is this bloody red dish. Well its sweet and sour pork. SSP here is not like what you can get in Singapore. I believe this is a bit of a HK and Glaswegian Fusion which is notoriously infused with malt vinegar (yucks). The souriness is meant to come from pineapple and some chinese vinegar not malt vinegar.... Fortunately, the chef probably knew we were chinese so he tuned his dish towards our palates. It was a pretty tasty dish despite its looks. The best part was the meat was tender and the sauce although qutie wet wasn't overpowering.

This dish requires little explaination. Kangkong stirfried with sambal blachan. Nice with a bowl of rice. I wish there was more blachan and sambal flavour. Other than that, still a good dish.

This is called Thai Shi Ji aka Thai Style Chiken. Haha quite a stylo name right but its basically KFC spice powdered chicken topped with cool cucumber and a sweet thai like sauce. Not too bad la, fried chicken always taste good. Definately recommend it to anyone who comes to China Blue.

Claypot Tofu with Mince Pork. Hmm yummy. Nice with a hot bowl of rice. Actually, this statement is so cliche but I doubt you can eat it on its own. Its just too salty. yeah... Best eaten with a bowl of Rice.

Finally, save the best for the last. Or least what I thought was best. To be honest, I wasn't sure what was the best dish of the night for me. I was thinking it could be the yam because it was the first time that we were all eating it but it din't hit the spot for me or it would have clinch my due praise. This fish, I don't know what fish it is but i am assuming it was a sea bass. It was pretty large compared to what i got from the fish monger. Tasted fresh and the sauce was much better than what I make at home. If you look at it, its much darker in colour and taste wise it was more flavoursome and of the right salty-sweetness. Well it definately worked for me.

Besides these dishes we also had a starter soup and some red bean soup dessert complimentary of the restaurant. The best part was they gave us a 20% discount card that can be used till they decide it expires. Looks like we will be coming back soon.


Alright its really late now and i need to sleep. Please ignore my spelling errors for now.
HOpe you enjoyed the post. Good night

Seafood Dinner

Almost everyone loves cereal prawns. I for one never liked the taste of cereal probably because i was force to eat for breakfast as a child and it tasted so horrible. Thankfully someone else found a better use for cereal.
Aa made this to supplement the fish. I got the prawns from the same fish stall. It was good bunch of prawns for only 5 pounds.
Aa made use of a special packet mix from singapore (S$6). Basically its just frying the prawns in some oil. Take the prawns on. Melt some butter add more oil and fry the cereal mix. Throw in the prawns and give it a good stir.

It was good....

Fresh fish and fishing goes a long way back in my family's history.
I was fortunate to be able to have fresh fish right from the sea almost every day when i was younger. To be able to find this little fish shop near finneston was a blessing for me.
This is a 3 pound fish that weighed about 500 grams. Sufficient to feed 3 people with a couple of other dishes.
Steam it about 12 mins and serve with a sauce mix of special fish soya sauce (2 measures), sesame seed oil (1 measure) and shaoxing wine (1 measure).
Top with spring onions and ginger.


*Use fresh fish never frozen. Taste better that way. Heat the sauce before pouring over the fish