Eager to rid the taste of disappointment from dinner at a certain Singaporean restaurant, we headed to Tokyo's Koreatown in Shin-Okubo the next day in the hopes of having a much better dining experience. We enjoyed the sweet taste of success at a restaurant called Kanton no Omoide - kanton is Korean for an empty can, and omoide is Japanese for memories, so the restaurant's name means "memories that fill an empty can" (or something like that). The restaurant plays on the nostalgia theme, and the interior of the restaurant was filled with images from the 60s and 70s. I'm certain the same theme runs in the restaurant's branches in Shinjuku and one less than 200m down the road from the one we entered. We both adore Korean food, and I can't believe it's taken us this long to go to Koreatown and try the food there. Zak got a lot of attention while we were in K-town, more than usual, rivalled perhaps only by the attention he got during our trip to Okinawa. I suppose babies are not frequently seen in and around Shinjuku which is known for its 'colourful' nightlife (to put it nicely).

It's a popular restaurant and it was packed when we arrived at lunch time. As far as I could tell, the waitstaff were Korean, which was a promising sign that at least the food would be the real deal. We were put in the corner table of the room, which was a good thing because we had a baby with us, but we had a lot of trouble getting the waitstaff's attention. It was only at the end of our meal that we realised there was a little buzzer button on the menu holder on every table - it was so easily missed because it was so small and we mistook it to be part of the decoration. The menu was completely in Korean and Japanese, which was rather overwhelming because of the huge variety of dishes available combined with our relative unfamiliarity with Korean dishes other than the standard Korean dishes of bibimbap and bulgolgi. We wanted to try something different, but had no idea what was good, and in the end I just relied on the photos (Rob was busy with feeding Zak his lunch and left it up to me to make the order).

As soon as we were seated, the banchan (complimentary side dishes) were placed on the table. We were starving so it was good to munch on something while pondering over the menu. Four types of banchan: gobo (burdock root), kongnamul (seasoned beansprouts), cold tofu and kimchi daikon. I've always liked Chapchae (stir-fried cellophane noodles) so I got the half-sized order (850yen) to enjoy as a side dish (normal size is 1260yen). It was delicious with the fragrance of garlic and sesame oil, chewy black fungus and crisp vegetables.

The four banchan; and Chapchae:


I also ordered the half-size serving of Chijimi (seafood pancakes aka pajeon and buchimgae) because that was the only dish Rob expressly requested (700yen for half size, 1575yen for normal size). It was really good - crispy, crunchy and plenty of seafood yet surprisingly not overly greasy. Rob declared it to be the best version of seafood chijimi/haemul pajeon he's ever had (and we've had a few in different countries).

For the main dish, the photo for Possam looked good, and the method of eating it seemed interesting enough. There are two sizes available depending on the number of people sharing the dish - medium size for 1869yen (1-2 people), and large size for 3129yen (3-4 people). To eat, you wrap the meat in a Chinese cabbage leaf with ssamjang (delicious spicy paste) and/or sweet kimchi. Cut green chili and raw garlic are also provided for those who likes them. This dish was simply gorgeous - plenty of umami flavour, wonderful textures, and you eat it however you like it. We had about half the sweet kimchi leftover after we'd finished the meat and cabbage leaf, and we kept picking at it - there were slices of crunchy sweet pear, nira (garlic chives) and pinenuts. Simply yummy.

Glorious seafood Chijimi; and simply delicious Possam:


We were pretty full at this stage, but we just could not resist ordering the Patbingsu (600yen), an ice dessert. We were surprised at how big it was when it arrived at our table, but thankfully (or not?) the dessert consisted mostly of ice shavings underneath all the colourful toppings of fruit, sweet mochi pieces, sweetened azuki beans (which makes up the 'pat' of 'patbingsu'), cornflakes, sprinkles and chocolate syrup. It wasn't too rich or heavy, and was just perfect for the hot summer weather. We amused ourselves by giving Zak a tiny chunk of ice and watching his reaction, which was so funny that I asked Rob to do it again so that I could capture his reaction on camera. Yes, we can be cruel parents sometimes ;)

Patbingsu:


We really enjoyed our meal, and would love to come back here again to try other dishes on the menu.

We're not usually so readily dismissive of a restaurant on the first visit, but you know it's bad when even their o-susume (recommended) dishes sucked. I considered not reviewing this restaurant as we had a rather disappointing experience, but I thought that perhaps I could save another person (perhaps a Singaporean food lover) from making the mistake of dining there. Singaporean cuisine is not very well represented in Tokyo, but there are a smattering of Singaporean restaurants around Tokyo, and Cafe Singapura is one located in Roppongi. Service was good (I've yet to be disappointed with the always courteous Japanese service), and it seems to be quite a popular restaurant with the Japanese people. I guess most of the patrons wouldn't have any inkling of what good Singaporean food is.

We ordered Coconut Milk drink (500yen), which was actually coconut cream mixed with coconut juice and some coconut flesh. I've never had coconut cream in a drink before, and it was pretty good in this combination.

Coconut Milk:


The beef in the Beef Rendang (1200yen) was fall-apart tender, like it should be, but the gravy was disappointing - I couldn't taste much coconut in it, and it wasn't spicy at all. And the serving size was disappointingly small, especially for a 1200yen dish - only three and a half chunks of meat in the dish. This was one of the restaurant's recommended dishes. We also got Pepper Prawns (1100yen), which was perhaps the only dish that was decent. I enjoyed the fresh and juicy prawns, but the plate could do with more prawns and a lot more pepper.

Beef Rendang; and Pepper Prawns:


The biggest disappointment was reserved for last - the Charkueyteow (1050yen), which was another of the restaurant's recommended dishes. CKT is Rob's standard dish for comparison between restaurants serving Malaysian/Singaporean cuisine, but what we had was not even fit to be called charkueyteow. This dish failed on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. For one thing, most of the noodles on the plate weren't even the flat rice ones, but the usual yellow wheat variety. Secondly, the pieces of what we thought were lap cheong (aka Chinese sausage) tasted like hotdog sausage - definitely not the flavourful, fatty, sweet-salty ones. Thirdly, it was seriously lacking in any wok hei (wok "flavour") - in fact, it was lacking in any flavour other than soy sauce. It was very salty and not very enjoyable to eat. I have never been so disappointed with a charkueyteow dish before this one.

Disappointing Charkueyteow:


To add insult to the injury, we were charged a table charge simply for dining at the restaurant. There are far too many crosses marked against this restaurant for us to consider a revisit. The food at Hainan Chifan, whilst not the best Singaporean we've had, is more reliable and nearby (see my previous reviews on Hainan Chifan).

I don't know why this quiche is called impossible, because it really is possibly the easiest quiche one could make! Perhaps it's referring to the relative improbability that mixing all the ingredients would produce a great pie dish? I was rather pleased with how well it resembled a normal quiche (albeit a pastry-less one) especially since it took considerably less effort than it does to execute a normal quiche recipe. It certainly was nice to receive compliments and praises on it too! My recipe is adapted from the Impossible Quiche recipe on Taste.com.au. This recipe leaves plenty of room for tweaking, and I imagine you can probably use any combination of vegetables and/or meat, but I wouldn't use overly wet ingredients (e.g. tomatoes, unsqueezed blanched spinach, etc) which would make for a soggy texture especially if you have leftovers to store. I also didn't have a quiche dish and used a greased springform tin instead because I wanted easy removal - this, in hindsight, was not a very wise thing to do for a crustless pie. A little leakage occurred, which I'd anticipated, but cleaning the springform tin afterwards was a real pain because of all the crevices. It was easy to remove the pie though!

I've also decided to include the calorie consumption in my recipes from now on to help make it easy for those watching what they eat. The numbers will be as accurate as my kitchen scales and the info on the internet would allow me to be.



Improbable Quiche

Serves 4, 1600kJ/381cal per serve

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil
1 small brown onion, chopped
3 rashers of bacon (~75g), roughly chopped
4 slices of ham (~40g), roughly chopped
1 small red capsicum, diced
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/2 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup (80g) grated cheese
1/2 cup frozen corn
1-2 tablespoons herbs (I used basil, rosemary, oregano, parsley, thyme and sage)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180degC and grease a 24cm diameter ovenproof dish
2. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat, and cook the onion, bacon, ham and capsicum for a few minutes, stirring often, until the bacon is lightly crisp, the onion is slightly caramelised and the capsicum is cooked. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes
3. Whisk the eggs, milk, flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl until well combined.
4. Stir in the bacon mixture, grated cheese, frozen corn and herbs into the mixing bowl. Season with pepper (and salt, if desired, but keep in mind that bacon and ham are salty already).
5. Pour mixture into your greased dish, and bake for 45 minutes or until set in the centre.
6. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

The quiche is also delicious when eaten fridge cold.

We've been to Nawab many times before, and even had a take-away meal from this little gem after we moved further away from it. There's a reason why it's one of our favourite Indian eats, and I've yet to be disappointed with the food they serve. Last weekend, we felt like having some good Indian food for lunch, so we decided to get on our bikes, with the baby strapped onto Rob's back, and ride the short 10-minute trip to Nawab. (We weren't counting on the weather forecast to be that unreliable, and we were caught in the rain on the way back from lunch. I felt like such a bad mum for letting Zak get wet.)

Lunch time service in our experience has always included a small bowl of salad for each diner, which had a delicious dressing to make eating vegetables enjoyable. We shared a glass of Mango Lassi (500yen), which was lusciously mangoey. For carbs, we got our favourite bread - the Mughlai Naan (700yen), which came pipingly fresh out of the oven. The sweet nutty combination of raisins and cashews in the naan never fails to please our tastebuds.

The glass of Mango Lassi and my complimentary bowl of salad; and naan with raisins and cashews:


For our mains, we ordered the Chicken Spinach (1150yen), which was mildly spiced and delicious, and would go really well with rice. We also shared a plate of Prawn Chili (1000yen) - the prawns were lightly spiced and fried crispy, served with onions and green capsicum in a spicy sauce. This dish is probably not Indian, but Nawab does a very nice version of it. The prawns I ate were juicy and fresh, but Rob said he ate one that wasn't as fresh as he'd like it to be.

The Chicken Spinach; and Prawn Chili:


To end the meal on something sweet, we ate Kulfi (400yen), a coconut-flavoured frozen dessert. It wasn't smooth and creamy like ice cream; rather, the kulfi had a dense and icey texture, kinda like sorbet. It had a lovely coconut flavour, not too rich or too sweet, which is always a nice way to round off a good meal.

Coconut Kulfi:

Whenever I bake, I like to try and make the recipe as healthy as possible without compromising too much on taste, and this muffin recipe is no exception. I used less sugar, less butter and wholemeal flour, and the ladies at the young mothers' Lifegroup I attend every week gave this muffin their thumbs up on taste and they said they were happy it was healthy enough to give their toddlers to eat. Using wholemeal flour makes the muffins denser than normal muffins, which I don't think is a bad thing. In fact, I actually prefer the texture and taste of wholemeal baked products to the usual white stuff. I've also tried this recipe with 1 cup dessicated coconut which gave the muffins an added dimension of flavour, and the Lifegroup girls liked it too! I really hope they weren't just being polite, but maybe you can try this easy recipe and judge for yourself. I'll probably try making a chocolate version next time I'm left with too many ripe bananas.

Banana Yoghurt Muffin



Ingredients

2 cups (250g) flour (I used 50-50 wholemeal and plain)
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (50g) caster sugar
1 cup bananas (about 2 large or 3 medium sized bananas), mashed
1/2 cup (120g) yoghurt
2 eggs
50g butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180degC.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg into a mixing bowl.
3. Add the sugar to the flour mix, and stir to combine.
4. Mix the wet ingredients (mashed bananas, yoghurt, eggs, butter and vanilla extract) together.
5. Combine wet and dry mixtures until just blended (avoid over-mixing otherwise you'll have tough-textured muffins).
6. Pour the mixture into a 12-muffin tray, filling each muffin cup only 2/3 full.
7. Place the muffin tray in preheated oven, and bake for 15-20mins or until a skewer comes out clean when poked into a muffin.

Best enjoyed fresh out of the oven, tastes fine the next day, and is okay for freezing too.

I must admit that I am not a big fan of Mexican food, or at least the ones I've tried before. Greasy flavours and overloaded with cheese, I consider them not much different than the junk fast food. The exception would be the Mexican food I had at New York's Pompano, but that was a fine dining kind of experience and you can't really compare it to the types of food that most would associate with Mexican cuisine - food that I consider as street food: enchiladas, tacos, and so on. Anyway, some time last year, Rob ate at Salsita with some of his colleagues, and he raved about it and reckoned I would like it. However, at that time, I was pregnant and the thought of having Mexican wasn't really that appealing - the greasy cheesy stuff would surely trigger morning sickness and indigestion. Last weekend, the opportunity came up to visit this Mexican restaurant because we happened to be in the area around lunch time. The reviews I read online seem to favour Salsita as the best place to have authentic Mexican food in Tokyo, so I was willing to quell my prejudices against this cuisine to give the restaurant a try.

After checking that the restaurant is okay with a baby, we were seated in the cool air-conditioned dining room, a wonderful respite from the warm mugginess outside. Staff were great and friendly, and the atmosphere was buzzing as the restaurant filled up with the Saturday lunch crowd. Zak was as chatty as an 8 month old baby can be but no one seemed bothered by his noises.

Rob ordered the Cochinita Pibil (1900yen), which is marinated pork slow-roasted in a banana leaf. It was served along with some flour tortillas, refried beans and corn chips, red onions and a spicy salsa. The salsa has quite a kick, and I think it was made with habanero chili. The pork was simply delicious, which we ate rolled up together with the accompaniments in the tortilla. The refried beans were so more-ish.

Conchinita Pibil, wrapped and unwrapped:


I considered getting the Mole Poblano Chicken, but decided against it because Rob already had this dish on his previous visit. I went instead for one of the 1000yen lunch specials, the Two sauces Enchiladas for which you could choose cheese or chicken filling, and included a salad and drink. My chicken enchiladas came with a green and red sauce, refried beans and corn chips, and rice. Both the sauces were made with chili but neither were particularly spicy - the green sauce was perhaps made with jalapeño, and the red one maybe with Guajillo (I do have a high tolerance for spicy food, so some may find them spicy). I preferred the green sauce whereas Rob liked the red one better, but I probably liked the green one better because there were more of it to eat with the rice.

The salad that came with the enchilada:


For dessert, we got the Tres Leches Cake ("three milk" cake, 500yen) which had slices of mango in it. It was delicious and light, a great way to finish the meal.

Tres Leches Cake with mangoes:


Rob was right - I do like the Mexican dishes at Salsita. I didn't find anything greasy or overly cheesy, and it's certainly a nice change from the Tex-Mex versions.

Summertime in Japan for me is not just about (enduring) the humidity and muggy warmth, but also about the matsuri (festival) season that it entails. We'd experienced amazing and unforgettable matsuri during our year-long stay in inaka (countryside) Japan, and it was nice seeing this cultural tradition also taking place in the city last year. A couple of weekends ago, we chanced upon the Tsukiji-jishi Matsuri when we walked past a street full of yatai, food stalls set up temporarily during a matsuri event. I actually didn't know that there was a shrine in the area (the Namiyoke-Inari shrine). We checked out the food stalls, but because we'd already eaten our lunch, we only got some bebī kasutēra (baby castella) which is one of the things I like to get from these food stalls, and some kuro-goma mochi (black sesame mochi) from the karami-mochi food stall. The mochi was pretty good - you can see whole rice grains which gave it a lovely texture somewhat different to the pounded or flour versions. It wasn't overly sweet either which was a nice change from the usually too sweet flavour in Japanese-style sweets. We didn't hang around for the parades because we didn't know the schedule and the baby needed a nap.

The food stalls, view from the main street towards the shrine; and the entrance to the Namiyoke-Inari shrine:


Goma (sesame) mochi - it tasted a whole lot better than it looked! And a group of people in their happi outfits on their lunch break opposite the shrine's entrance:

It was Rob's birthday last week, and I like taking him to nice restaurants to celebrate. Last year we ate excellent food at La Rochelle, two years ago we enjoyed our first fine dining experience in Tokyo and unforgettable Japanese-French fusion cuisine at Restaurant Yonemura, and my very first blog entry in this journal was about the exciting teppanyaki meal we had for Rob's birthday way back in 2005. So anyway, I wanted to take Rob to a nice fine dining restaurant (I was thinking kaiseki), but unfortunately, unlike in NYC, such restaurants in Tokyo won't allow young children. So that plan went down the hole, and I asked Rob to choose a place we have been to before that we've liked and are happy to accommodate babies. He chose Beijing restaurant Lao Hu Dong Yi Ju in Roppongi Hills, which we have been to twice before. This time we didn't order their delicious signature dish, the i>Beijing-style Sweet and Sour Pork</i>, and instead chose to try out other dishes.

To start with, we ordered Nira Manjyuu (prawn and garlic chives dumpling, 500yen for two). This was really good! It was pan-fried which meant it had more flavour than if it was steamed, yet not overly greasy like deep-fried ones. The prawn and chives were a great combination, and I found that it was delicious to eat as it was without any sauce.

Prawn and garlic chives dumpling:


We each chose a dish, and Rob selected the Deep-fried Prawns in Spicy Sauce (1980yen) which was also yummy but I let Rob have most of it since I am not big on deep-fried stuff. The prawns were fresh and juicy with flavour, and there were deep-fried squid too! The squid pieces were tender - I would love to know how do they get it that tender? My dish was the Seafood with Vegetables and Rice in Claypot (1480yen). The rice had soaked up all the gravy/soup and had a wonderful mochi-like texture because short-grain Japanese rice was used. I liked that the dish was mildly flavoured which allowed the subtle seafood flavours to shine through. The seafood were nicely cooked, not overdone at all.

The deep-fried prawns and the claypot rice:


Once again, Lao Hu didn't disappoint us, but their dessert selection is quite limited, so there was no doubt from the start that we would be heading elsewhere for sweets. Since it was Rob's birthday celebrations, he got to choose where to go for dessert. And where else but to Cold Stone? We shared a German Schokolatekake (chocolate ice cream, pecans, coconut, brownie, and fudge instead of caramel). Yummy! Too bad Zak is still too young for ice cream.

Delicious eice cream from Coldstone Creamery:

Yes, I'm still blogging about our NYC eats even though we've been back in Tokyo for over a week now, but this is the last one. Rob's auntie arrived in New York two days before our flight back to Tokyo, so we met up with her for dinner on that Thursday. Rob and I actually had no idea where to bring her, only that it had to be somewhere downtown near our apartment because we had an early morning flight the next day. The problem was, good restaurant eats are hard to find in the financial district of the city. In the end, we decided to go to Alfanoose, which was a 5-minute walk from our apartment, and it has plenty of good reviews so we knew the food would be decent enough. However, we didn't expect it to have such a casual setting, but this is not a really bad thing. It's the first time we've brought her somewhere we haven't been before. (By the way, the spellings of the dishes names are as given by the restaurant's menu, which differs slightly from the more usual spellings.)

We decided to go for the Combination Meat Platter (US$18) where you can choose two types of meats, and it comes with a pita bread, the choice of mojadara (lentils with wheat or rice) or salad, and either homous, baba ganouge, tabouli or foul mudammas. I was overwhelmed by the unfamiliar terms and the variety of options to choose from, and it didn't help that Rob and his aunt left it up to me to choose dinner, so I just chose the meats and let our server decide what would go with the meats. We got the Lamb Shawarma (sliced lamb meat marinated in vinegar and spices, US$13.25) and Shish Tawook (charcoal grilled cubes of marinated chicken breast). I honestly do not remember which side dishes were chosen for us, only that they were yummy. We also shared a serve of Meat Kibbeh (ground lamb with cracked wheat, stuffed with chopped meat, onion, walnut and spices, US$7.95). This was nice, but I probably preferred the falafel which I'm comparing to because they're both deep-fried balls. Rob mentioned that although the meats tasted good, they were pretty dry on their own, but that was easily fixed by liberally using the dipping sauces that came with the platter.

Combination Meat Platter with Lamb Shawarma and Shish Tawook; and the Meat Kibbeh:


In addition to the meats, we shared a Combination Vegetarian Platter (US$12) with a choice of three vegetarian dishes. This option is served with a pita bread and mojadara or salad. I chose the Falafel, Stuffed Grape Leaves and Foul mudammas. The vegetarian musaka was also on the plate, so I guess the combination vegetarian platter included an additional side dish. The falafel was pretty good, and Rob said it was his favourite item out of everything. I enjoyed the musaka too.

Combination Vegetarian Platter:


I liked the generous serving sizes - although there were four of us sharing the two combination platters, we couldn't finish everything. I also liked that you could choose wholewheat pita bread here. And also the fact that this place caters to both the herbivores and carnivores with plenty of choices. Rob always has room for dessert, and Alfanoose has a decent selection of Middle Eastern desserts. He selected Namora (US$1.75) and Kinafa (US$2.75). The Namora was a rather dense coconut cornmeal cake soaked in sugar syrup, and it proved too sweet for us. The Kinafa was a light and creamy cheesy dessert, which was really nice! So nice that Rob went and enquired more about it. It uses shredded phyllo dough called kataifi, which gave it a lovely light texture to the dessert. And it wasn't too sweet, which made it all too easy to eat too much of it.

Namora and Kinafa:


This is a great little place for Middle Eastern food in a laidback atmosphere. Friendly and helpful staff too.

After our dimsum lunch at Red Egg, we headed towards Little Italy in search of the nougat/torrone stall we encountered last time. When we couldn't see it anywhere (admittedly, we weren't looking very hard nor going very far to look for it), we decided to buy a cannoli. (Actually "cannolo" is the correct term for singular cannoli, but our NY foodie guru Michael said that most New Yorkers (even the Italian-Americans) would use cannoli/cannolis for both singular and multiple.) This one was chocolate covered cannolo (US$4) filled with a creamy cheese (which I think was mascarpone because it was too smooth and creamy to be ricotta). It was quite rich, and I'm glad we shared one between the two of us.

Chocolate-covered cannolo:


Other than the ubiquitous street carts all around NYC, delis are a popular place to grab breakfast and lunch. My last day in NYC saw me with an empty fridge, so I headed down to the nearby Champs Deli for a takeaway lunch. I got the Grilled Chicken & Fresh Mozzarella Panini (US$7.45) which also had arugula and tomatoes in foccacia bread. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that sandwiches at Champs came with a choice of either chips, coleslaw or baby carrots. The panini was delicious with generous amount of chicken breast, and the mozzarella, arugula and tomatoes were a great combination - I guess that's why those ingredients are a popular pizza topping! It was a very filling lunch.

Grilled Chicken & Fresh Mozzarella Panini from Champs Deli: