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
-------------------------------------------
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.

Sausages and Pasta

I was anticipating a simple meal today. something cheap for 3 pounds. Well Sainsbury has the answer with the sausages going for half price at 2 quid (shortform for pound) and the pasta going for 1 quid. Its easy to make and gives you free time to do other stuff while your water boils and cleaning up is easy as well.

Ingredients
-------------------
- Sainsbury's Ultimate Pork Sausages x6, Taste the Difference 400g
- Rana Bolognaise Tortellini 250g
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Bertolli Tomato Pesto
- Sprinkle of Italian herbs or dried basil

Bring to boil a pot of water. Boil the sausages according to instructions. Once done transfer to a frying pan and pan fry till its brown. In the same pot, add the pasta and boil according to instruction. Drain, stir in pesto over low heat. Sprinkle dried herbs. Serve with sauages.
Enough to feed one hungry puberty boy or 2 small little girls

*Increase the taste by adding pepper or some shaved cheese.

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

Roast Beef

Finally a Beef Dish. Big G 's been asking me why hasn't there been any beef dish yet. Well.... Hope this post will satisfy you : )
Aa made this for dinner tonight. Its absolutely delicious, succulent and full of flavour. I like my beef medium rare to medium. Aa on the other hand likes his still alive .. you know... when you cut the beef and you could still hear this mooing sound in your ear and all the bloody juices start flowing out. Yea thats how he likes his.
Along with it were some mashed potatos and huge carrots which tasted almost like sweet potato.

It was a "moo"varllous meal.

Roast Pork Chinese style

IMG_7278, originally uploaded by jiapui.

Aa does the English dishes and I normally do the Chinese versions. Roast pork is a nice representation of the differences in our culinary skills.
Been eating so much pork lately that I am starting to get tired of its taste. Looks like I'll have to source out some alternative pretty soon.

Ingredients
-----------------------
- Pork 2kg (Belly is nice what i have here is a shoulder which is pretty tough as there is very little fat content in the meat itself)
- 5 Tbsp Oyster sauce
- 1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp light soy sauce
- 4 Tbsp Sugar
- 2 Tbsp sesame seed oil
- 2 Tbsp five spice powder.
- Lotsa garlic (As much as your friends can tolerate wahaha)

Mix all the sauces together with 3 Tbsp of water. Rub it all over the meat. Marinate for at least an hour. Overnight works best. Preheat oven to 250 degrees C. Pop the pork into the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 170 degrees C. This will help you to achieve some crackling. Cater approx 25mins for every half kilo of meat.


*Rest your meat for 15mins before carving so that the juices are reabsorbed into the meat. Slice it thin when serving. Eat warm when it is moist.

Dinner with the Tungs

I love this dish when i was younger. Mum used to make it for me and her's still taste better even up till today.

Made a couple of mistakes with this dish today though. Firstly, I refused to use the teflon frying pan. Instead I decided to use my non-seasoned non-stick wok.. :(.. Secondly... I have forgotten to add soy sauce.. haha the girls must be wondering why it tasted bland lol. I did try to cover it up with some salt but it just never tasted the same.

Ingredients
-----------------
- 6 eggs
- 200g mince pork (chinese supermarket pork is better as it has higher fat content. of course if u are health conscious go for the English supermarket mince as they have a higher lean meat content)
- 3/4 tbsp of light soy sauce for every 2 eggs (use abit of agaration laa..)

Heat oil till hot. Drop in the egg mixture. Pan fry. Do the flip if you can. Serve hot with spring onions.

Bought this sauce from Singapore when i came back this time round. Another great product from Lee Kum kee. Most people are quite accustomed to the taste of their black bean sauce but I wanted something with an added kick.

What I like about it is the right balance of spiciness and saltiness. Taste Gooooooodd!!!...

Ingredients
- 1 Packet chicken wing (approx 8-9 wings)
- 2 table spoon LKK spicy bean sauce
- 1 table spoon oyster sauce
- drizzle of sesame seed oil
- some mince garlic

Heat the oil till hot. Stir fry the garlic. Throw in the chicken wings. Fry for a bit till its brown. Cover and simmer. (add some water if it dries up). Pour in the sauces. Stir and continue to simmer for about 10 - 15 mins.
Serve with Spring onions.


*Spring onions are fantastic for garnishing and can be quite versatile in chinese or english cooking. Keep them in a bag to prevent them from drying out.

*Throw some sliced red chilli and green chilli in for added spiciness and colour

TrioD is my lazy way of calling a dessert made up of a cake, icecream and a fruit. Its extremely easy to fix together and when presented elegantly can a classy item. Thanks to the girls for providing the victorian sponge cake and strawberries.

Ingredients
-------------------------
Victorian sponge cake 3 pounds
Box of strawberries 3 pounds
Green and black organic ice cream 2 pounds
me too
Served 4 people with sufficient leftovers for 2 more helpings.

Salad on a Sunny Day

IMG_7264, originally uploaded by jiapui.

The weather's great today. The sun was shining and the winds weren't blowing at all and the best part, I got a half day.

This salad is beautiful and it made me feel a subtle coolness just by looking at it. Unfortunately, i don like rockets. Its a tat too pepper for my taste buds.

But for those who are interested, here's the ingredient list,

- Bunch of rockets
- handful of cherry tomatos
- 2 chopped sundried tomatos
- half a green pepper & half a stalk of celery
- drizzle of balsamic vinegar
- drizzle of olive oil

Serves approx 2 small portions.

HongY's Blueberry Cheesecake

IMG_7226, originally uploaded by jiapui.

Thank you to HY for providing us with a blueberry cheesecake for the curry night.
As you can see there's a banana cake sitting behind the cheesecake which tasted equally nice but you can probably guess which cake i went for first.

Well Done girl!.

Dilly's Curry

Dil invited a huge group of us for dinner tonight. He made 3 awesome dishes 1 pork curry (remember the funny podcast), 1 chicken curry (featured) and 1 mix vegetable curry.
You could taste the difference and tell that it wasn't North Indian nor Singaporish.. WEll done Dil.

He has so kindly given me a list of the ingredients for the southern chicken curry haha but of course the quantity remains a closely guarded Peiris Secret.

*masala, curry powder, ginger garlic onions tomatoes coriander cumin chillies tumeric lemon grass youghurt, milk