Thursday, 23 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Shrimp curry and rice

Where from? Woodside Aunty

How much did it cost? $6 per curry but sufficient for 3 meals.

How was it?
We haven’t ordered from Woodside Aunty in a while due to the weather and just bad timing on our part; she takes orders only for Wednesdays and Saturdays and we end up forgetting to order for those days. Plus the weather has been crappy and she said she wasn’t able to cook on some weeks.

This is another traditional Burmese curry. Just some shrimp made into a curry with some shallots. Growing up, I didn’t particularly like this curry as much. But these days, I think it hits the spot very well. Normally we order the large shrimp curry but apparently there’s a shortage of the large shrimps which Aunty normally cooks, so we ended with the smaller ones. The perfect way to eat this is to take some warm, fresh rice and pile on the shrimps, together with a bit of the oil/gravy; mix the rice up with the oil (as you can see in the yellow tint in my rice) and chow down!

Rate it!
8/10 Perfect combination for a lunchbox for work.

Tuesday, 21 January 2014 – Lunch

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did I eat? Chicken with basil, papaya salad, tom yum, BBQ sliced pork salad and Chan’s noodle soup

Where from? Sripraphai

How much did it cost? $40

How was it?
Thanks to the impending blizzard, we got to leave work at 1pm. So what do we decide to do? We decide to venture out to Woodside for lunch at our favorite restaurant in town. In spite of the snow coming down hard, I must say the trip was worth every flake of snow blown into our faces.

As usual, HH had her favorite noodle soup. Apparently she was going to write the review for it since I don’t know much about it. All I know is that she puts in a lot chilli, even though she orders it spicy. And as usual, I always steal one meatball from her soup. That’s the tradition.

We started off a BBQ sliced pork salad. Sripraphai makes really good meat salads for appetizers and this one did not disappoint. The flakes of rice powder adds a tingly feeling, like you’re munching some sand. The level of spice was perfect too and went well with the sour flavor of the sauce.

I debated between my usual chicken with ginger sauce on rice or BBQ chicken over coconut rice but went with the something on their lunch special. For $13, you get an appetizer, soup, main dish and a drink. You can’t be that value! I chose my usual Thai iced tea, a papaya salad and a shrimp tom yum soup, together with chicken with basil on rice. Since we had the other BBQ pork salad on spicy, I requested the papaya salad to be medium. The tom yum had more sour than spicy flavor with a liberal dose of mushrooms which I enjoyed. The server asked if I wanted the chicken minced or sliced; I picked the minced version. The minced chicken holds flavor much better than the sliced version; the fillets don’t absorb the flavors as well.

We took home some dessert, as well as some sticky rice and pork jerky for dinner, which will be mentioned in a subsequent post.

Rate it!
10/10. Rarely will Sripraphai be rated below this so get use to it!

Monday, 20 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Cheese ravioli, beef something (forgot the name but looked good) and potatoes

Where from? Pizza Rustica

How much did it cost? $8

How was it?
I haven’t been back to Pizza Rustica in a while but since they just followed me on Twitter, I decided to pay them a visit. They have different pasta and meat specials every day. First time that I’ve seen ravioli on the menu though. The beef had some Italian name but it looked like beef stew. Since I only wanted the ravioli and the beef, the guy at the counter gave me all the ravioli that was left. The normal platter consists of 1 pasta, 1 meat and 2 veggies but I normally end up with 2 servings of pasta and 1 serving of veggies.

The ravioli was a simple cheese one topped with some marinara sauce. I like ravioli and this one was decent. Don’t expect high-end Italian restaurant ravioli; this is meant for the working man and as such won’t be as “premium”!! The beef was interesting. There was a strange sweet flavor with the meat which I couldn’t identify. It could be the sweetness of the carrots or just sweet gravy but it was oddly tasty. The beef wasn’t that tender so I had to cut it quite a bit; I had to take care in cutting so I don’t puncture the metal container.

Rate it!
6/10

Saturday, 18 January 2014 – Dinner

What did I eat? Grilled brie sandwich with smoked duck breast and fig jam. Pineapple juice (probably from a cheap bottle)

Where from? Bubble Lounge

How much did it cost? $14 for the sandwich and $3 for the juice

How was it?
We went out tonight to the Bubble Lounge to throw a surprise birthday bash for a friend’s 30th. All I had to eat was the bacon and eggs for breakfast so I was ready to eat. I wasn’t expecting decent food either since it’s not really a restaurant. As the name says, the place specializes in fizzy drinks, ie. champagne. We had reserved space for 15 people and they gave us plenty of room; the only requirement was that we had to spend at least $25 per person, which we easily did. The place also seemed to cater to an older crowd; most of the crowd seemed to be in the 30s, if not older.

I wanted apple juice but turns out they only have OJ, cranberry or pineapple. Pineapple juice became the drink of the night for me; I thought I had 4 of them the whole night but ended up drinking only 3 according to the bill. It was good juice but that’s about it.

The brie sandwich was very good, I must say. I didn’t quite taste the duck breast though. The sweet flavor of the fig jam overwhelmed the duck, in my opinion. Nonetheless, it was a great sandwich. The presentation was a bit deceiving though. The sandwich was cut into strips, like Jenga blocks, and made into a tower with a hole in the middle filled with the leaves. Sneaky bastards! The salad was just a simple lettuce with some balsamic vinaigrette.

Rate it!
5/10 for the juice, 7/10 for the sandwich, 8/10 for the lounge

Saturday, 18 January 2014 – Breakfast

 

 

 

What did I eat? Bacon, scrambled eggs with tomato and toast with butter

Where from? Homemade

How much did it cost? Who’s tracking…

How was it?
Since I was going to be watching 3 matches of football, I decided to make a hearty breakfast. Only thing I was missing was either a tall glass of orange juice or a sweet cup of milk tea.

The scrambled eggs needed some onions – eggs + tomatoes + onions = WIN! I also misjudged the amount of sugar so the scrambled eggs turned out really sweet, almost like pudding. But I enjoyed them anyways.

Cooking the bacon in the pan was a mistake. I think I prefer my bacon microwaved. Less oil splattering and I can get the right level of crispness.

The toast is just simple white bread toasted and smeared with some butter.

Rate it!
7/10 (anything with bacon deserves at least a 7)

Friday, 17 January 2014 – Dinner

      

What did I eat? Hotpot

Where from? Homemade. Ingredients from US Supermarket and Sky Foods in Elmhurst

How much did it cost? $50 for the pot, probably $30 for the ingredients

How was it?
This was a spur of the moment dinner. While going to Elmhurst Aunty to get food, we decided that it would be good to have some hotpot. On the way back, we stopped by the grocery store and bought ourselves a steamboat (hotpot pot) and some stuff to boil. I don’t remember the brand of the steamboat but I think it worked out pretty well. The pot is pretty large and we could probably have about 5 or 6 people eat at the same time.

We got some sliced beef, shrimp, assorted fish balls, some mushrooms, pea leaves and some Chinese cabbage, I think. I can’t tell the difference between lettuces and the cabbages; to me, they all look green and same. The beef came in thick slices which gave it a bit of a texture when chewing. The shrimp were unbelievably sweet. Among the assortment of fish balls, my favorite was the tofu fish cake (the yellow cubes in the photo). I should have gotten more mushrooms though; we tend to go through a lot of mushrooms when doing hotpot. We used two soup bases since we have different hotpot connoisseurs at home. HH likes the Little Sheep brand but I think they’re too “spicy”, as in full of spice. I picked a random packet at the grocery store and it turned out pretty good too.

Lastly, on the way back from US Supermarket, we decided to stop by Sky Foods which was on the way. We stopped to buy some beef tendon since HH wanted to put in the hotpot. BAD IDEA! The tendon did not cook well and they all hardened. Maybe we needed to slice the tendon into thinner slices, rather than chunks. Sky Foods will be our Asian grocery store of choice. It’s not busy as US Supermarket and it’s much bigger and cleaner. Only down side is that you can’t access this via subway unless you’re willing to a longer walk.

The hotpot at home was a success and now my stomach is growling from all the spice!!

Rate it!
9/10

Friday, 17 January 2014 – Breakfast

What did I eat? Dumplings

Where from? Somewhere in Flushing

How much did it cost? Probably $1

How was it?
One of my colleagues usually brings me something from Flushing on Fridays; most of the times, he brings dumplings but occasionally I’d get springrolls instead. These are the usual pan-friend pork and chives dumplings. They have a bit of juice in them so you have to be careful not to spew out the liquid when you bite into them. They’re pretty cheap in most places too – probably between $1 to $1.50 for a few pieces. These go very well with some congee.

Rate it!
7/10

Thursday, 16 January 2014 – Dinner

What did I eat? Grilled spare ribs, sticky rice, kimchi

Where from? Homemade ribs, sticky rice from Tuk Tuk, kimchi from the deli

How much did it cost? $6 for the sticky rice, $6 for the kimchi, probably around $10 for the ribs and marinade

How was it?
THAT WAS A GREAT DINNER! FANTASTIC! AMAZING! SUPERB! MAGNIFICENT!

Once again, we didn’t have any food left so I took out the ribs the night before and liberally soaked them in the Korean BBQ marinade, while it was thawing in the fridge. Previous attempts at grilling these ribs have turned out to be a bit disappointing since I end up burning them. This time, I kept a watchful eye on the grill to make sure there weren’t any flames flaring up and engulfing the juicy ribs. And GREAT SUCCESS! The ribs were grilled to perfection. Although I think if I had wrapped the ribs in foil and grill them for a bit before charring them later, it might have been better but regardless, these were splendid.

The kimchi was a disappointment though. I don’t think it’s been fermented sufficiently as yet. It lacked the sharp flavor and I was able to taste the napa cabbage more than I’d have liked. I’ve saved it in the fridge in hopes of the flavor building up over the next week or two.

The sticky rice was too soft for my liking but it was acceptable. The ribs and the sticky rice went together like Gary Neville and David Beckham in the heydays of Manchester United.

I’ll definitely make this again in the future. I have half bottles of Korean BBQ marinades left in the fridge.

Rate it!
10/10 for the ribs (first 10/10 of the blog), 4/10 for the kimchi, 6/10 for the sticky rice

Thursday, 16 January 2014 – Breakfast

What did I eat? Turkey bacon, sausage patty, scrambled eggs

Where from? Cafe Olympia

How much did it cost? $5 (actually should be less since there was an error at the scale but I didn’t bother to recheck)

How was it?
I switched up my usual pastry and got a hearty breakfast instead. Unfortunately, they ran out of regular bacon so I had to settle for turkey bacon. It is still BACON! I also picked the scrambled eggs with veggies since the regular scrambled eggs were looking real dry; but even these scrambled eggs were starting to dry. I know these fake eggs (the ones from the cartons) tend to dry up if they are sitting too long on the buffet bar, just like those I used to make in the Quad kitchen back at Grinnell. I also got a sausage patty to round it off. Pretty good breakfast and kept me full til past my regular lunch time.

Rate it!
6/10

Thursday, 16 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Caesar salad

Where from? Cafe Olympia

How much did it cost? $3

How was it?
Since I had a big breakfast, I wasn’t particularly hungry for lunch. Plus I knew an epic dinner was coming up so I made the conscious decision to have something pseudo healthy. Hence, the salad. This was straight from the buffet bar, not a custom tossed salad. That is the reason why it cost so little. I added an extra bit of dressing since I like to drown out the taste of the lettuce. I picked out extra croutons too to add a bit more flavor. Caesar is catching up to ranch as my dressing of choice – yes I am fully aware that these aren’t the healthiest dressings out there but at least they help me eat my veggies.

Rate it!
7/10