Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I make this dish when the vegetables are really nice and fresh. I guess it’s my version of pasta primavera. Last week, we ended up with some really good asparagus from the farmers’ market. I also made it with broccoli and asparagus since. It’s superb. I know it doesn’t look all that interesting to many carnivores out there but when made wit fresh asparagus and broccoli, the vegetables are beautifully sweet.

For two:

1. 6 thick asparagus
2. 1/2 head of broccoli, cut into small florets
3. 3 shallots, sliced
4. 1 tbsp of pine nuts
5. 1 small lemon
6. 250g of spaghetti
7. 3 tbsp of spinach and almond pesto*
8. 80 g. of butter
9. 1 tbsp of olive oil
10. 1/2 tsp of salt

Use a peeler and peel back the tough bit of the asparagus stems. Bring a large pot of  salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook for about 5 minutes. Before blanching the whole asparagus stems and broccoli florets in the boiling water for 1 minute. Remove the vegetables, set aside.

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I am going through a fish phase since I discovered that I can easily run to the Queen Vic during the lunch hour to be the best fish imaginable. I have been wanting to make something with fresh tuna for a while and I figured the classic nicoise salad would be ideal. I bought some really nice yellow fin tuna steaks and seared it quickly before tossing it into the salad.

I had all the ingredients for the nicoise salad except for the actual nicoise olives and dijon mustard. So I improvised a little with the dressing. I decided to marinate the tuna in the salad dressing and since my new thyme was growing rather nicely, I thought I would make the dressing a combination of thyme and lemon zest.

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Gayle, Murray, Josh and I went looking for a dumpling place on the main strip of Glen Waverley. Gayle, being a local, was completely out of touch with the Asian bit of Glen Waverley. Tsk tsk, Gayle! Unfortunately, it was 11am (we tried to make brunch because Josh and I had to be at Richard’s later for dungeons and dragons… oh did I just type that out? damn) and no dumpling place was opened. So I figured we might try The Grand Tofu instead.

There are actually two separate The Grand Tofu (no, I wasn’t the only one who noted this anomaly) on the same strip of King’s Way in the good old Glen. I suppose the shop was so popular that they might as well open two. I have been to the other one back in uni year. Zing and Cindy then boasted that they did really good yong tau foo. Frankly, I didn’t really quite know what yong tau foo was however when I got there I realised it was the noodle soup dishes where you get to pick ingredients of what goes into the soup. I have had it in Malaysia before (although the words yong tau foo didn’t really ring a bell). And then later in Singapore at the MINDEF canteen where I worked ($2! how awesome was that?)

(pan-fried dumplings – $6?)

To cut the long story short, we ventured there that day. The decor was nicer than I remembered the other joint to be. Gayle, Murray and I all wanted to try the yong tau foo but Josh had wanted to be boring and decided on a plain old wonton noodle soup.  For the yong tau fu orderers (is that a word?), the waiter asked us for the choice of soup: braised (plain chicken stock), tom yum (Malaysian version of tangy, mildly spicy tom yum), and laksa. We were then given a ticket with instructions on how many pieces of yong tau foo we could choose.

So we all crowded around the selection and chose our poison. We also ordered pan-fried dumplings since we figured we were there for dumplings in the first place. The dumplings were all right. Nothing special. The ginger that came with it was rather nice though. I suspected they didn’t put that much efforts into the dumplings. Read the rest of this entry »

Quick lunch last Wednesday (I think). I desperately needed to get a pair of flats that I wear everyday for travel fixed and I did a bit of searching for a cobbler in the CBD and found a few recommendations on the Vogue forum. So I decided that I would take my shoes to Rekaris Shoes on Lonsdale St. I met Josh at the street corner and we walked to where the shop was meant to be, and there was no shop. The shop was gone. FML. So I took the shoes to the cobbler in Target Centre and he quoted me $75.00 for the fix. Ouch. I bought them when Aldo was on sale in Singapore and they didn’t cost that much! They are my favourites.

(Miso soup – $1.50)

Anyway, enough about shoe rambling. Luckily, there was Izakaya Shogun. I decided that I wanted to try it. So we walked in and saved for a couple of suits, it was empty. So we quickly ordered stuff off the lunch menu. My miso soup arrives within a couple of minutes. It was very good. Nice and hot with subtle red miso taste. Not the silly floury miso soup you get at some Japanese takeaway. Shudder. It had strips of puff tofu in it, which I rather liked. I think I prefer it to silken tofu cubes. It was very good for $1.50.

(I take random pictures when I wait for food)

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a wait (about 10 minutes, too long for lunch) until my other food arrived. I had ordered tonkatsu-don, which was basically tonkatsu or crumbed and fried pork fillet served with tonkatsu sauce and rice.  Josh had ordered yakiudon.

(tonkatsudon – $10.50)

My food arrived first. The pork cutlet was thickly cut. It was perfectly crumbed and fried with just the perfect amount of sauce. The sauce was quite all right. The pork was rather lean and I like my meat fatty but it was still good at the end of the day. The rice was well made and sticky as the way Japanese rice is meant to be. Read the rest of this entry »

(Yorkshire Pudding with Wagyu and Mashed Potato – $8.50)

I met up with Rilsta (who runs a fabulous food blog called My Food Trail) for lunch one day. I picked Cafe Vue (she’s picking next time) because I perceived it to be the exact mid way between our work places and Nicole had been raving about Cafe Vue forever. Nicole was supposed to come along of course, but as usual I got ditched last minute for ‘I need to buy fish at Vic Market! I need my fish!’

(lunchbox: potato and smoked trout salad)

We got there bright and early at 12 because I’m told that the place gets really popular and you’ll be waiting for a table. Luckily for us, we snagged almost the last table. After perusing through the menu (which was much more extensive than I thought since the web site had no indication) I was tossing up between the wagyu burger and the Yorkshire pudding with wagyu. I decided on the Yorkshire (you know I love my Yorkies). Read the rest of this entry »