Pho at...Pho

Working near Liverpool Street puts me in walking distance of Spitalfields Market and a variety of great lunch spots. A couple of weeks my boss and I wandered over to Pho - a family run chain specialising in Vietnamese street food - for a quick sit-down lunch.

We both ordered pho - the big bowls of hearty Vietnamese noodle soup from which the restaurant takes its name - and I was very impressed. The rich, flavourful broth was packed with noodles, greens, and plenty of tender, flaking beef brisket; while a side serving of fresh herbs, raw beansprouts and chilli added a nice element of DIY to the meal - although I stupidly added too many chilis to my soup and ended my lunch with streaming eyes!

"Flowering" tea - so pretty!

All in all, a great little spot: nothing too fancy, but perfect for a relaxed lunch. Perhaps now the weather has turned I'll go back for one of their summery Vietnamese salads.

 

Now Street Food: Ping Pong, but quicker

I recently changed jobs, and my new office - near Liverpool Street station - has placed me in walking distance of a plethora of new lunch spots.

I've always been a fan of Ping Pong, but mealtimes there have tended to overrun - not ideal for a weekday lunch. So I was pleased to discover Now, the new "fast food" addition to the Ping Pong family, just around the corner.

Chive and prawn, seafood, and har gau dumplings

With the same focus on good quality dim sum and tasty Asian dishes (rice and noodle bowls, hearty soups, and even a Chinese burger), Now is like Ping Pong, but quicker!

I ordered the seafood dim sum and a sticky seafood rice roll to go, for a healthy but satisfying lunch. The dim sum was very good - perfectly steamed, with a delicate flavour and no hint of sogginess - while the rice roll, pleasantly glutinous in its banana leaf wrapper, was flavoursome and filling. I'll be heading back soon to check out the rest of the menu!

   

Ottolenghi's turkey and courgette burgers - fusion-style

One of my friends bought me Jerusalem (the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi) for my birthday, and I've been very excited to try out some of the incredible recipes. Post-Christmas, I finally have a bit more time for experimental cookery, and this weekend I decided to make a start with the turkey and courgette burgers.

The recipe calls for fresh coriander, mint, spring onions, cumin and cayenne pepper, but as I already had a big bunch of wilting parsley in my vegetable drawer (left-over from my chicken soup), I didn't really want to buy any more fresh herbs. Instead I decided to expand on the spring onion flavour and attempt an Asian twist on the original recipe, skipping the mint, coriander, cumin and cayenne, and substituting grated ginger, lime juice, a dash of soy sauce and a hint of chilli in their place.

Fried in sesame oil and served with pak choi and noodles this was a light, subtly oriental supper, and - if there had been any leftovers - I think the turkey burgers would have also been lovely cold (perhaps in a sandwich for lunch...). Here is my take on the recipe:

Ingredients

500g minced turkey, extra lean
2 small courgettes, coarsely grated (around 200g)
3 spring onions, finely sliced
Grated root ginger (one or two inches, depending on how much you like ginger!)
1 medium free-range egg
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Dash of soy sauce (in the place of salt)
Juice of half a lime
Pinch of dried chilli flakes
Coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
Sesame oil, for frying


Preheat the oven to 220C (or 200C for a fan oven). In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients bar the sesame oil, then shape into small burgers (the recipe should yield around 18 patties).

Heat the sesame oil in a large frying pan, and sear your burgers in batches until golden brown on all sides (about 2 minutes on each side, on a medium heat). Transfer the seared meatballs to a foil-lined oven-dish and place in the oven for 5-7 minutes, or until just cooked through.

While your meatballs are cooking, prepare your egg noodles according to the instructions on the packet. Separate the individual leaves of your pak choi and steam (or stir fry, if you prefer) for around two minutes.

Serve with sweet Thai chilli sauce for dipping.

Tasty chicken in satay sauce

I had planned on making chicken satay yesterday evening, but arriving home late after a cold and dark walk back from the office, I couldn't face fussing around with skewers and marinades (nor the 20 minute wait for the chicken to cook in the oven...). I already had all the ingredients I needed for my satay, so I decided to have a go at re-creating an Indonesian dish I tried years ago; a simple but delicious meal of chicken cooked in a spiced peanut sauce.

I didn't really follow a recipe for the satay sauce - I've made it enough times in the past (usually using Jamie Oliver's recipe) to know roughly what it should contain, so this time I decided to take the leap and make it according to taste. It turned out even better (in my opinion anyway!) than Jamie's version, and while I didn't really measure things out properly, I've attempted to record the recipe below:

Ingredients

Satay sauce:
4 heaped tablespoons of smooth peanut butter
2 teaspoons of runny honey
2 inch square cube of fresh ginger, grated
3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
Juice of half a lime
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
(Optional: If you like it spicy, add some finely chopped red chillies)
Water, to thin the sauce

Chicken:
Sesame oil
500g chicken breasts, cut into rough chunks

To serve:
Iceberg lettuce
Rice or noodles
(Tip: if using noodles, add them to the pan with any excess sauce for extra tastiness!)


Method

In a large frying pan, heat your sesame oil and add your chunks of chopped chicken.

Meanwhile, add all the ingredients for the satay sauce to a bowl, and mix together well. Taste and tweak the proportions as you see fit (for example, if you like it sweet, add extra honey; for spice fiends, add chilli...).

Fry the chicken until golden brown, then turn the heat to low and pour the satay sauce into the pan. Add water to thin the sauce to the desired consistency, and stir for a minute or two until the satay sauce is heated through and runny.

Plate up your chicken with iceberg lettuce and rice or noodles. We had noodles, which I added briefly to the pan to mop up the excess satay sauce - yum!

The whole meal took about 15 minutes to make and was actually tastier* than traditional chicken satay, despite the less refined presentation; a warming, comfort-food version of one of my favourite summer-time recipes.


*I was starving, so my judgement may have been skewed!

Malaysian food diaries: best of the rest

I did mean to get all my Malaysia posts up in the week I got back, but time seems to move at a different pace in London, and the last 12 days have flown by in a whirlwind of work deadlines and Christmas parties...My tan is fading fast, I've caught a cold, and my holiday feels like a distant memory - so it's probably a good time to cheer myself up with some reminiscing!

I don't want to bore you with a million detailed posts of all the delicious things we ate on holiday...but here is a quick look at some of my favourites.

We celebrated Diwali (or Deepvali as they call it over in Malaysia) with a gorgeous chai tea (and a slap-up tandoori meal) at Restoran Kapitan in Georgetown, Penang.

Happy Deepvali!

A beautiful Deepvali decoration made up of thousands of tiny beads...

Georgetown is famous for its food: apparently it is not uncommon for KL residents to make the 4 hour trip just for a meal in one of the famous hawker markets...We ate at the Red Garden market in the centre of town, where there was an incredible array of stalls serving everything from traditional Malay to Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Phillipino, Thai and Indonesian dishes. I went for a tasty pad thai (see above), while my boyfriend had some less photogenic (but no less delicious) crispy roast duck.

On arrival at our hotel in Langkawi, we had the best chicken satay of our trip. Basted in a delicious, subtly sweet marinade, and accompanied with a gorgeous peanut dipping sauce, this was perfect alongside a heaped plate of nasi goreng (Indonesian egg-fried rice).

While in Langkawi, we also tried deep fried soft-shelled crabs. These tasty golden morsels - which you eat whole, shell and all - were fantastic: tender and sweet, with just the right amout of crunch. Delicious.

While we didn't actually try a durian, we definitely smelled them! This pungent fruit seemed to be in season during our visit and we were able to sniff out the roadside stalls even through the closed windows of our bus!

With such a multi-cultural cuisine, it's easy to lose yourself in Chinese, Indian, and other pan-Asian fare...but the local Malay food is just as good. One of my favourite Malaysian dishes was beef rendang curry. I've eaten this before at the Banana Tree in Angel, but the real deal was even better.

Rendang is far dryer than the curries you usually get here in the UK: packed with strands of slow-cooked beef and crumbly grated coconut, it has a fantastic texture, and a lovely flavour from the combination of tasty spices (ginger, lemongrass, tumeric, tamarind, cinnamon, cardamon....). They served it in the breakfast buffet at our hotel in Langkawi, and I piled my plate high each morning for a hearty (if somewhat unusual) brunch.

Another speciality was roti canai. Differing slightly from the Indian dish of the same name, Malaysian roti is a square flat bread composed of thin layers of buttery dough and fried on a hot plate. Fresh from the griddle, this was ridiculously good: perfect paired with daal, or with a couple of sunny-side-up fried eggs at breakfast (for yolk-dipping - YUM).

Possibly even more delicious (and unhealthy!) than the roti canai was murtabak, a dish consisting of roti stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, vegetables, ginger and egg before being fried on the griddle. We tried the chicken and beef versions on our trip, and both were excellent. I've never come across these in the UK, which is probably a good thing (for my waistline at least...) 

We also ate some great South Indian food in Langkawi, including the fantastically crisp dosa (thin rice-flour pancakes) and dal makhani in the photos above. Dal makhani - a creamy, buttery, red kidney bean stew - was one of my favourite dishes when I was travelling in India a couple of years ago. I've always been disappointed with the ones I've tried in the UK, so it felt amazing to finally satisfy my cravings with a really good version!

On our way back down to KL we spent a couple of days in the Cameron Highlands, where many of Chinese restaurants were serving something called a 'steamboat'. Intrigued, we gave it a go...

It turned out to be fairly similar to the Japanese sukiyaki we tried earlier in our trip: we were served with huge platters of seafood and dumplings and told to help ourselves from a buffet of noodles and vegetables, before cooking everything ourselves in a hotpot filled with two types of broth (spicy tom yam soup and a milder vegetable broth).

On our final night in KL my boyfriend wanted to go for Korean BBQ, so we headed to Bulgogi Brothers in Pavilion Mall. I've never really been a fan of Korean food (everything is so vinegary!) but as with everything else we ate in Malaysia, it was pretty good.

Strips of marinated beef and little spiced burger patties - cooked by a chef on a hotplate at our table - were paired with an abundant selection of side dishes. Some were rather too pickle-y for my liking (such as the ubiquitous kimchi) but I enjoyed the lotus roots and sweet potato mash. We also ordered an interesting egg-fried rice dish called bibimbap. A portion of rice, topped with vegetables and a spicy sauce, arrives in a searing hot bowl. Raw egg and meat is added to the dish, everything is mixed together, and the heat from the bowl cooks it all through: Yet another example of the table-side cooking which seems to be so common in Asian cuisine.
And with that final bit of food-tourism, our trip was over and we headed back to chilly England...

Malaysian food diaries III: Dim sum brunch in KL

After making our way up the West coast of peninsular Malaysia to Langkawi, and back down the centre via the Cameron Highlands, we ended our holiday with one final day in KL.

I am a huge fan of dim sum (I once consumed 18 prawn dumplings in one sitting...), and while you can get some great dim sum in London - Yautcha is my favourite - I was keen to try out the 'real deal' with a traditional Asian dim sum brunch before we left. With this goal in mind, we returned to Pavilion Mall (home of Suki-Ya) to Din Tai Fung, a chain well known for its dim sum offering.

A tower of dim sum deliciousness...

After perusing the menu, we ordered four types of dim sum: pork and prawn shao mai, crab xiao long bao, pork and prawn dumplings, and pork buns; alongside a couple of other dishes - braised beef soup for me, and pork chop fried rice for my boyfriend - and a big pot of jasmine tea.

My soup was excellent: delicious chunks of tender, slow-cooked beef floating in an intensely meaty savoury broth, with some wilted greens thrown in for good measure. The portion was a lot bigger than I expected - see the tea cup next to the bowl for a sense of scale! - and combined with the huge pot of jasmine tea, I was pretty full of liquid by the end of the meal (as attested by my 'sloshing' stomach). Totally worth it though!

Pork and prawn shao mai

The dim sum arrived as they were ready (which was somewhat faster than we could eat them), and we soon had a towering stack of bamboo baskets on our table.

My favourite were the pork and prawn shai mai. These little pockets were filled with a gingery meat filling and fragrant juices (which spurted out messily - but tastily - with every bite), and topped with a delicately balanced prawn.

Pork and prawn dumplings

The pork and prawn dumplings were also a lot 'juicier' than any I've had before (causing my boyfriend some concern that he may have squirted the couple at the table next to us!), but were delicious all the same.

Crab xiao long bao

The crab xiao long bao were a bit less hazardous - smaller than the other dumplings, they could be consumed in one tasty mouthful - and had a pleasantly delicate crab flavour.

I only managed a tiny taste of pork bun, but was very impressed. The last time I tried pork bun was at a service station in Vietnam - a horrible concoction of grisly unidentified meat in a powdery bun. These were completely different: delicious, richly flavoured pork filling encased in incredibly light pillows of dough.

After brunch we went for a walk round the centre of KL. In our two-week absence from the city Christmas decorations had appeared everywhere, and it felt very strange walking around amongst all the Christmas trees in 30C heat and brilliant sunshine. It definitely put me in a festive mood though, and the thought of heading back to chilly London became a bit less depressing when tempered with thoughts of party season!

Christmas AND summer clothes - crazy times

Malaysian food diaries II: Sukiyaki at Suki-Ya, KL

Here in the UK, we have a tendency to think of Japanese food in terms of sushi and ramen. However - as covered in my last post - there is much much more to Japanese cuisine than raw fish and noodles. While some of the more interesting dishes haven't fully caught on here (yet), they are definitely popular across the rest of Asia, and I took full advantage of this on my trip to Malaysia.

Sukiyaki (also known as Japanese hotpot) is a delicious DIY-style meal. Perfect for sharing, it consists of a big stew pot filled with stock (sweet, teryaki-esque sukiyaki and salty shabu-shabu are two popular flavours) in which diners cook a variety of vegetables,  dumplings, noodles, and (tastiest of all) slivers of thinly cut meats.

I first sampled the delights of sukiyaki at Suki-Ya in Singapore last year, when my boyfriend and I stumbled across (and into) a branch in the mall near our hotel. We loved it so much we went twice, and were determined to return if we ever got the chance.

Much to our delight, we discovered that there was another Suki-Ya (one of only four branches across Asia) in the Japanese section of the swish Pavilion shopping centre, a mere ten minutes walk from the hotel we had booked for our first night in KL. Unable to resist, we headed there for dinner.

Tokyo Street in the Pavilion Mall, KL

At Suki-Ya, the traditional cooking pot is split down the centre, allowing you to sample two flavours of stock if you wish - we went with sweet sukiyaki and salty shabu-shabu (the other options are miso soup or spicy, vinegary kimuchi). The pot is placed on a hot plate in the centre of the table and diners add vegetables and other ingredients from an impressive 'all you can eat' buffet featuring, among other things, five types of mushrooms, a variety of root vegetables, various forms of cabbage, a range of dumplings (eggy, fishy, and cheesy) and a selection of noodles.

We left the noodles until last (the waiters recommend adding them to the thickened stock at the end of your meal), but piled our plates high with an assortment of the other ingredients, plus a few dipping sauces. The delicate, slender-stemmed mushrooms (huge bunch on top of my plate in the photo below) are my favourite, but I also love the larger, meatier mushrooms: these are especially good in the sukiyaki stock, as they really soak up the sweet flavour. However, neither of us were particularly keen on the fishy or cheesy dumplings (and without English labels, it was a bit of a guessing game to avoid them!) - perhaps these are more of an acquired taste...

Waiters bring round plates of finely sliced meats on request - in Singapore, there was a choice of beef, pork or chicken, while in primarily Muslim KL, lamb was offered in the place of the pork. The beef is the best, in my opinion, needing mere seconds in the bubbling broth to achieve a perfect medium-rare finish. My top tip (as demonstrated by our waiter) is to dip the cooked beef into a dish of raw beaten egg before you eat it...heavenly*!

For a mere RM 29.80 at lunchtime or RM 39.80 at dinner (about £6 and 8 respectively, at the time of writing) you can eat as much as you like, with unlimited servings of meat and vegetables, and top ups of stock if you need them. The only limit is time: tables come in 120 minute slots, although you can purchase more time if you need it....you'd have to have a serious appetite to need it though: with all the soup and vegetables this is an incredibly filling meal!

I really hope the Suki-Ya chain makes its way over to Europe soon: sukiyaki is a fantastically social, hands-on way of eating, something really different from the norm - not to mention delicious - and I think it could be incredibly popular here.

Gratuitous touristy KL photo!

*I know this sounds gross, but it really is delicious! Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Pan-Asian cuisine at Banana Tree

Specialising in Indochinese cuisine*, Banana Tree has six branches across London, serving all corners of the capital with excellent pan-Asian food at a reasonable price.

http://www.bananatree.co.uk/locations

The Angel branch is my 'local': Situated just a few minute's walk from my flat, it's the perfect remedy to a long hard day at work - ideal for those nights when I can't face cooking, but don't want to get dressed up and sit through a formal dinner either. The decor is stylish but understated - think a sexed-up Wagamama - and with long wooden tables and a laid-back atmosphere, it's as perfect for group dining as it is for a relaxed date.

The menu is varied and pretty extensive, featuring South-East Asian classics such as pho and nasi goreng** (ahh, backpacking memories!) alongside a few dishes I haven't tried before (like the exotic-sounding "Kari Santan Melayu" seafood curry).

Yum yum yum: peachy mango bellini

My most recent visit to Banana Tree was last week, when I came here with my boyfriend and his mum. After ordering some drinks - a couple of peachy mango bellinis and some authentic thai Singer beer - we got stuck into the food menu.

Banana Tree has a really tasty selection of starters, from tamarind and garlic chicken wings to Malaysian laksa soup, and we struggled to chose just three. Eventually we decided to share the double cooked crispy pork mix, satay chicken, and kau chi dumplings.

The crispy pork was excellent. Miniature ribs, encased in a delicious layer of dark, chewy meat, were served alongside a lovely dipping sauce and a helping of tangy achar pickle. Despite the generous portion, these disappeared very quickly!

Kajang satay chicken was also very good. The succulent skewers were accompanied by a beautiful peanut dipping sauce, while chunky slices of glutinous steamed rice, wrapped in palm leaf, made an interesting addition to the dish.

The kau chi dumplings (hidden beneath the fresh herb garnish in the picture above) had a light, fragrant pork and prawn filling - definitely the healthiest starter of the three!

For my main course, I was sorely tempted by the pad thai (which is my go-to South-East Asian order - I've tried Banana Tree's version before and it's very good). However, determined to be a bit more adventurous, I opted instead for the chargrilled blackened chilli pork.

With tender slices of chargrilled meat in a delicious glossy sauce, this was a perfect light main (although it became somewhat less light after I'd dipped each bite into the remnants of the peanut satay sauce!).

My boyfriend's mum went for the crispy chicken with mango and sweet lime sauce. I stole a taste and it was delicious - reminiscent of Chinese lemon chicken (but not the terrible version you sometimes get from dodgy takeaways, all chewy meaty and synthetic-tasting gloopy sauce!), except more fruity.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend went with "The Legendary Rendang". Lauded in the menu as "king of curries", this consisted of slow-cooked beef in a tasty coconut-based curry sauce. For £2.95, he upgraded to the Banana Tree Special Combo meal, and received a sesame glass noodle salad, steamed jasmine rice, two deep-fried sweet corn cakes, and a couple of spicy crackers on the side.

We really enjoyed our meal here (as always) and I'll definitely be popping by again soon...And with branches all over London, I recommend you give Banana Tree a try too!

*Indochina being Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos

**Vietnamese noodle soup and Indonesian egg fried rice, respectively - both delicious!

Vietnamese (ish) sea bass

I've eaten a lot of good seafood since moving to London - most recently at the Morito Seafood Festival - but my two most memorable seafood meals both took place on a trip to Vietnam a couple of years ago.

 

The first was in Mui Ne, a pretty coastal town half way between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. If you walk along the bay - past the endless stretch of hotels that line the shore - you come to a little fisherman's village, where you can find some of the best food in town at obscenely low prices.

Freshly caught seafood sizzles on make-shift barbecues, filling the air with the mouth-watering scent of charred fish, while locals dish up steaming platters of seafood noodles and chunky fish stews. The calamari I ate there - piping hot morsels of golden-fried squid that literally melted in my mouth - was one of the highlights of my trip, and none I've eaten since has ever lived up to to their memory.

Seating comes in the form of child-size red plastic tables and chairs (actually identical to the ones I played at as a child), and while this can pose a bit of challenge for the taller diner - it was hilarious watching my 6 foot 3 boyfriend squeezing in, knees almost touching his chin - I think it adds to the overall experience...!

 The other meal was in Halong Bay (of Top Gear Special fame), on one of the many floating restaurants that line the shore. I'm pretty sure it gave us food poisoning - or at least made the food poisoning we already had worse - but it was definitely worth it*. A huge, sizzling fish, freshly caught - skin golden and crisp; flesh soft, white and flaking - was fried up with an incredible medley of lemongrass, ginger, chillies and garlic; intense, fragrant flavours which had us picking the bones and scraping the plate clean.

Recently, I decided to attempt to recreate this (hopefully sans food poisoning) at home...

Ingredients:

Sea bass (gutted and descaled as I waited by the lovely lady at the Waitrose fish counter)

Fresh ginger root, finely sliced

Red chillies, sliced

Lime, quartered

Kaffir lime leaves

3 lemongrass stalks, finely sliced

3 garlic cloves, sliced

Toasted sesame oil

Mirin

Soy sauce

Coriander (to serve)

Tear off a large piece of silver foil and spread it onto a metal roasting tray. Grease the foil with the toasted sesame oil and place the two fish fillets onto the centre of the tray.

Cut slits into the side of the fish. Stuff the cavity of the fish with the quartered limes, ginger, lemongrass, chilli, and garlic, and push any leftover lemongrass and ginger into the side vents.

Douse the fish with mirin and soy sauce for extra flavour, and place into a pre-heated oven at 200C for about 30 minutes. Top with chopped coriander and serve piping hot.

While this meal was pretty good, it didn't even come close to the original. My decision to bake rather than fry the fish - motivated by a desire to minimise washing up and general stinkiness - could be to blame, as could the scarcity of 'fresh-from-the-sea' fish in central London. Or maybe things just taste better when you're floating in the turquoise waters of a tropical bay. Next time I make this I'll try frying it over a high heat and see if that helps!

*When you've had food poisoning on and off for four or five weeks, it becomes a bit of a non-event!