Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Turkish Marzipan

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 0 Comments
I picked this up on a whim, having tasted some of the best marzipan chocolates from my childhood and my old working place. Someone went to Germany and came back with 20kg of chocolates and while everyone jumped in head first for the cherry filled and whatnot shit filled I went for the marzipan. They had potato rolled marzipan, flavored marzipan and marzipan chocolate bars. Asians don't really appreciate marzipan because of its texture and taste but if you like cookie dough ice cream and fondant then you will like marzipan the same. Well, if you still don't like that then what the hell fuck you. I have well traveled family members and they come back with the one thing everyone loves-exotic chocolates. (Lindt are not exotic I don't know how the Swiss can be in any way be proud of it, the same way Turks shamelessly call simit as an edible bagel beats the common sense out of my fucking brains)

Anyways this marzipan was too sweet but you could smell and taste the fruit when it comes near your mouth. So overall in a scale of then, Ottoman's marzipan would be at an average 5






Glistening Wantan Noodles

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 0 Comments
I got my recipe all wish-washed the last time I tried my hands into making the perfect tasting wantan noodles. This time around I made sure I worked with patience and plenty of boiling water.

First things first, I brought 2 litres of water to boil then slowly put in the wantan noodles with hand, at the same time separating the strands from its flour coating. I let it boil for 5 mins then add in plenty of sesame oil (I used about 3 spoonfuls for a packet of wantan noodles)

Then I strained them and washed them under running lukewarm water (I didn't have cold water) When you drain them again they should look glistening, with the sesame oil all settled in between the noodle strands.

While the noodles are still warm, put them into a mixing bowl (I used the same saucepan I used to boil them, sans the water) add vegetarian sambal ikan bilis sauce, mushroom and oyster sauce, sweet soya sauce and a bit of caramel to give it a black color. I also added fried mock meat with my noodles. And believe me, the noodles tasted just like the wantan mee I used to eat back in Malaysia


the husband got this from Malaysia


This I got from Family Food Center


also from Malaysia, it's a novelty not sold here because it the producers are not halal


This sauce is available in both Lulu and Family Food Center, I got mine from the first



deep fried mock chicken


deep fried mock duck


The wantan noodles~

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Charles & Keith Shades

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 0 Comments
In accordance to the upcoming trip, I managed to the last pair of Carl Zeiss sunglasses for Charles & Keith. It was the cheapest I could find in all of City Center given that the average price of a sunnies are 500 riyals and can go up to 3500 riyals for high end brand. My budget was only 500 bucks because that's the limit my insurance covered. And for another 300 bucks on top of the pair of sunnies I got for 219 bucks I got a 30 day set of contact lenses for the trip!





Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Doha Review: The Noodle House

Tuesday, July 16, 2013 0 Comments
We went to the Noodle House the other night during Iftar, because of the ridiculous opening hours here during the crappy Ramadan month, malls are open late in the evening after Iftar and stays open late into the night, 2am. Most Qataris go nocturnal during Ramadan, choosing to sleep in the day and wake up at night to carry about their activites. On top of that most expat has gone off for holidays-treating themselves for cheap fun at Thailand and Bali so the restaurant was pretty much empty so we had good time to mull over food options without being rushed by the server and truly enjoyed the meal, albeit the EXTREMELY SMALL portions of food especially the main course. Noodle House pride themselves in selling authentic Asian and South East Asian cuisine with the common food in their menu such as Hong Kong style steamed dumplings and duck dishes, Indonesian and Malaysian style noodles and Thai style soups and rices. I wished they would have PROPER dessert though, like ice kacang and cendol or Thai mango sticky rice. I don't see how lava cake (although very tasty) and cheesecake are counted as Asian dessert. The one thing that I really liked was my Jasmine tea which reminded me of the tea I used to have in Malaysia where they come in a small Chinese teapot with small cups and they refilled the teapots every time it emptied

To order your food, you have to tick on the boxes next to the list of food on the Order Pad provided to you. We just scribbled vegetarian next to what we wanted to eat and they provided shaved eggs for my husband's bakmi

Go only if you don't mind forking money for stylishly presented food, average tasting main course but good selection of non-Asian dessert menu. The service was excellent with both the manager and assistant manager coming to us to ask if we needed anything else with our food, like water etc etc. We both had (vegetariansed for us)

Starters

  • Vegetable Spring Roll
  • Vegetable kacao
Main Course
  • Bakmi Goreng for the husband
  • Pad Thai noodle
Dessert
  • Seasonal Fruit Platter
  • Lava cake and vanilla ice cream
My husband and I didn't like the fruit platter because they mango they had was old, it was browning at the edges and it was AWFULLY SOUR. But the lava cake pretty much made up for the lousiness of the fruit platter. My husband had to mix it with the vanilla ice cream to wash out the sourness of the day-old mango

They're located at City Center on the Ground Floor and some place else at the Pearl



Note the 4 tiny jars that has thick chilli paste, thinned chili paste, ginger paste and green chili pickle in vinegar


The popiah/spring rools were fresh out of the pan and tasty


Vegetable Hacao, I think this was frozen and only steamed when needed because my hacao was damp and sticky


Bakmi goreng, as you can see while the presentation is lovely the portion is not. My husband was promptly hungry 2 hours after dinner.


The pad Thai was simple, nothing to shout about...well because none of the taste you would expect in a traditional Thai dish sprang out. Rather a mellow dish


Notice in the far back the condiments to complete a pad Thai, chilli flake, some shaved long beans, roasted peanut blend, and shaved eggs for the bakmi


The chocolate lava cake was lovely, and the vanilla ice cream was deliciously thick almost like a gelato


You can see what I meant about the freshness of the mango from this picture. The browning is very visible from here

Of course the tab will be paid for once the claim goes thru

Dinner Review: Mock Mutton Curry and Tom Yum Soup

Tuesday, July 16, 2013 0 Comments
With so much of frozen mock meat in the fridge and instant paste ready for boiling and cooking I decided to make tom yum soup and mock mutton curry, both of which turned out quite well, and I was pleased with the results myself

Some pictures after the experiment


...the packet of tom yum paste used



...cleaned and boiled mushrooms and select vegetables


...boiling the Ozzie chat potatoes

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Broccoli, kubbe and burgers!

Thursday, July 11, 2013 0 Comments
Some weeks back, I was trying to finish off all the processed stuff from my fridge to make space for all the incoming mock meat from Malaysia. I had a bottle of Kraft's heatable cheese spread, some burger buns, frizen bean patties and a frozen packet of Arabic potato and beans kubbe and some vegetables. Things take long time to go bad here, whatnot with the extremely dry weather.

So here are some pictures after the jump. The broccoli I had then boiled and dipped in hot cheese sauce and the kubbes were topped with the same cheese sauce. The soup was easy to do, just cook the vegetables and pour in some black pepper, Maggi's seasoning (so you can skip salt) soy sauce and a touch of vegetarian oyster sauce to thicken the soup and give it a dark color. I also had some dipping sauce leftover from Papa John's pizza (tomato dipping sauce for pizza and garlic-onion dipping sauce for garlic sticks) Here in middle east, they're not big on chilli sauce so every time you order out food they give you sachets of tomato sauce and black pepper, so you mix them both to get chilli/hot sauce taste. Lame, huh?




Monday, July 1, 2013

Black Pepper Coated Mock Chicken Curry

Monday, July 01, 2013 0 Comments
Ah, I had the privilege of having amazing spice mix that constantly allows me to roll out these simply delightful dishes. So today after ransacking deeper in the drawer I found packet of black pepper meat tempura coating powder which the husband had brought from his recent weekend trip to Malaysia. So I decided to fry the chat potatoes and mock chicken in the powder mix and they turned out pretty well I must say. I was too lazy to prepare the sauce to cook the chicken with so I opened up a packet of ready made paste; all I had to do was add 400 ml of water, boil the peanut flavored dry tofu, add in some pre-fried, water drained cut tofu pieces into it and when the peanut flavored dry tofu had cooked well, to add in the paste, the mock chicken and potato pieces. Overall, it turned out quite well although I must say the curry was a bit watery so I added in some coconut powder. Easy, tasty and a filling dinner


 The black pepper meat coating powder mix


The curry paste for the mock chicken


Fried potato and mock chicken


Boiling dry peanut-flavored tofu and pre-fried tofu


The final product~

Farewell Parties

Monday, July 01, 2013 1 Comments
I don't understand the farewell party trend in Doha. Everyone I know has two farewell parties, which really in my opinion defeats its purpose but hey, whatever works here! So anyways I was at Spice Market in W with my husband for a friend's farewell party and here are some pictures from the party. I am putting up the cocktail menu for you because they have happy hour everyday from 5-7.30 pm with a buy-one-free-one-free-snack promo for cocktail. Keep in mind that they always change their cocktail menu (probably on weekly basis because two weeks ago they didn't have Hibiscus Belini on their menu) and some time before that they removed ginger margarita but had to bring it back because of the demand

Luckily we kept our tabs separate because the bill came up to 1500 riyals





Finishing it off at Wahm