Grilled food on a cold wintry night, life's little pleasure

Nothing beats freshly grilled food
with a glass of beer or umeshu

OMG! I am behind on the SQ promotion cheap fares to Tokyo as my brain is suffering from election fatigue. Yup, every other person's status on Facebook is election related, not to mention, it's more news on tv, the internet or booklets stuffed at my doorstep. The plus point is I get to vote after so many years. Frankly, no more election news for me. Come Saturday, I am just going to get dressed, pop downstairs to the polling centre and cast my secret vote. Have already read about what to do and what not to do, cross, not tick in the box and what is a spoilt vote. Plenty of misleading posters around the neighbourhood that tells us to tick...

Back to the SQ mega cheap Singapore to Tokyo fare, it's only S$398 inclusive of tax. That is dirt cheap especially since you can see cherry blossoms around this time. But will I go? Nay. No time and that radiation problem at Fukushima that refuses to go away. I am sure the food that you consume in Tokyo is perfectly safe. Or very safe as I believe the Japanese have great respect for the food they sell and consume. Anyway, you can exposed to radiation in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore too.

Look, dirt cheap, right? At the cheapest in the past
for other airlines, it will be S$640 inclusive of tax.

But if you are going, please do visit this new favourite food haunt of mine in Tokyo. ふくはち Fukuhachi! Great food at affordable prices right smack in the middle of Shinjuku. Discovered it during my last trip to Tokyo. Super yummy.

What do I craved for while on holiday in the midst of winter in Tokyo other than a big bowl of piping hot noodles? Not sushi or tempura but a fresh batch of beautifully grilled yakitori, vegetables or whatever that is available at a Izakaya. Washed down with my drink of choice, pure heaven.

The wait game

 

Not mine but soon, I think the blossoms will be similar to the blossoms above

I am waiting with bated breath for the 2nd round of blooms from my dormant frangipani plant. It has been almost 4 years since it last bloomed. All thanks to the recent hot weather. There are buds on the plant. Hip hip hurray! But mummy always say don't count your chickens before they hatch. So exciting.

Natural warriors: No ants!

My self-concocted 'Bak Ku Teh' mix is working very well as a natural pest pesticide. The ants are not killed but they are avoiding the potted plants with the teabags of roasted spices like a plague. Biological warfare? The ants hated it and they have moved out of their previous home and out of my balcony garden. I have tried all sorts of plant pesticides to get rid of the ants. As I consume the herbs I grow, I would rather not use chemical pesticides. For now, it's a big, big hurray that is is working!

Bak Kut Teh (肉骨茶) is popular soup drank in Singapore and Malaysia. It is made from pork ribs lovingly boiled for hours with garlic, cinnamon, pepper, cloves and star anis. Some shops have also added secret ingredients in their spice mix. The end result is a very tasty soup usually eaten with rice and other side condiments like youtiao (fried dough fritters) and preserved vegetables. My favourite Bak kut teh shop is at Sultan gate (can't remember the name), the one at rangoon road (Ng Ah Sio Pork Rib Soup) comes a closed second, I like Song Fa opposite Central too. Interesting thing to note, most Bak Kut Teh are not sold on Mondays as the poor animals are not slaughtered on Sundays. If the soup is sold on a Monday, frozen meat is used. Not so nice.

Source: Song Fa Bak Kut Teh

About the Bak kut teh plant pesticide, I dry roasted the spices (pepper, star anis, cinnamon, cloves) to release the fragrance and packed them into the teabags. Next, I left them in the pots of rosemary and basil where the ants are nesting. The ants moved out after 1 or 2 days. It has been 3 weeks, they have not been back. Fingers crossed.

The teabags in the pot of basil.

Today's tea break

The tiramisu I made the other day tasted fine. : ) Not as horrible as my previous attempt. No more experimental ingredients for me.

Today's Dinner and tomorrow's dessert

Cooked szechuan hot and sour soup for dinner after tasting a horrible version in Taipei. Food in Taipei is generally good but the one I tasted was really a 'what is this again' version. Bad especially because it was my last meal in Taipei before I headed for the airport. Tsk tsk.

Soup and noodles eaten together with cold appetizers I prepared, cold sesame cucumber appetiser and sesame garlic spinach.

and DESSERTS!

Made tiramisu to eat over the next few days. I will find out if this is any good tomorrow. The last version I made has too little alcohol, I hope this version will be yummy. Left it in the fridge for the flavours to develop overnight. There goes my diet. More double classes  at the yoga studio.

Szechuan hot and sour soup

Good dose of Woh Hup concentrated chicken stock, I think it's 4-6 tbsp as I poured from the bottle. Taste the stock to check whether it is salty.
4 cups water, 960ml (includes the water used for soaking the mushrooms)
1 cup of dried black tree ear fungus 黑木耳, soaked and sliced into thin strips
1 cup of fresh bamboo shoots, cut into strips
1 cup of dried shitake mushroom, soaked and sliced into thin strips
1 carrot, sliced into thin strips
1 cup of siken tofu, cut into strips carefully
1 large egg, beaten
3 tbsp white rice vinegar
3 tbsp Zhejiang black vinegar 浙江黑醋
1 tbsp chili oil
1 tsp sesame oil
½ cup cornstarch liquid (water and 2 tablespoon of cornstarch mixes)
salt and white pepper to taste
2 stalks coriander as garnish

Cut shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, black fungus, carrots, tofu into strips. They should be cut evenly. Add Woh Hup chicken stock into pot of water together with the soaked mushroom water. Bring stock to boil over high heat. Add carrot, shiitake mushroom, bamboo shoots, black cloud ear fungus. Reduce fire to low heat, and simmer for 20 min.

Add in chili oil, white rice vinegar, black vinegar, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 min. Add tofu. Bring to boil.

Stir in corn starch until consistency is slightly thickened. Stir carefully since the fragile tofu has been added.

Turn off the heat. Add beaten eggs and slowly stir into the soup. Garnish with coriander.

I shall try a vegetarian version another day.

The Sunbird came and left

 

 Olive backed sun bird paid a visit

Early this morn, the sun bird came and left, almost like window shopping. I was sitting on the living room's floor. Spied it checking out the the lipstick plant in the balcony. In he flew above my head through the living room and took a sharp left turn into the kitchen and out to the open air probably on his way to check out other flowering plants on the other side of the apartment block.

He was very sure where to go. Obviously not his first time flying through my home. Cool, how nature made do with living in an urban environment.

When do you walk out?

  My mind was so stretched. No lolling hills, swimming in the sea or my fav walking-through-clouds-up-in-the-himalayas memory this morn. This picture was taken in Munnar, India. I usually think about enjoyable memories my mind took a picture of while going through difficult yoga sequences.

One word. TOUGH. It was a really tough yoga session this morn. 2 hours worth of inward battle with my mind. 1 hour into the session, the question popped in my mind, "Should I walk out?"

Not one who walks out of a class, I checked the time and discovered to my horror that only one hour has since passed and I was already mentally and physically spent. So much for wanting to make my money's worth to attend Sunday's 2-hrs Purna Yoga class as I was away for hols last week. I soldiered on and cheated in a lot of the sequences. Cursory stretches...hehe but Saumik noticed, came over, and pushed me into deeper stretches. Ouch.

It was not a cardio workout but my muscles and joints were screaming in pain (not in the life threatening way) but they were so agonisingly stretched that my mind and body were numb. The body opening stretches were very intense. Intense is a kind word, not forgetting the choice swear words I was mumbling under my breath while going through the sequence. It started with, 'Oh God' when Saumik readjusted my split. then it slowly became, "#!?#@" as the 2 hours slowly crawled by. Normally, I will just swear in my mind during challenging sequences but the pain was almost akin to twisting and stretching my limbs out from my joints. A good lesson in pain endurance and proper alignment. No worries, my mutterings were very softly uttered, no angry vibes were given out. The gentleman next to me couldn't possibly hear me. He was also fighting his inner battles.