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Thursday 19 March 2009
Eating in (January 09)
Despite many hints, requests and blatant questions of ‘Could I get free food’ from restaurants (kidding), I have not yet managed to get any free meals. This is despite the fact I bring my camera with me to most places in hopes that the waiters might get interested, and perhaps mistake me for some famous food reviewer. So far, this has not been fruitful.
Thus, I resort to cooking some days.
For those of you familiar with my industrial-cooking methods, what I cook on Monday tends to still be there on Friday. No, it’s not because it’s that disgusting that I can’t eat it, but the quantities are enough to frighten even champion eaters away.
This was one of those meals. The beef stew above looks good (compliments to the chef) for one meal, eaten with potato waffles (always bringing the standard down, bit by bit). After the 5th meal of beef stew with something else (variety is very important), it starts to get slightly bland.
After a week of beef stew, it’s time for another week of fish pie. This was made with store-bought mash (no time to make mash, one of the flaws of modern existence, but perks of supermarkets) and lots of store-bought fish.
With store-bought parsley sauce over the fish. It was surprisingly nice, perhaps even more so than store-bought fish pie, difference being although all the ingredients are store-bought (as they usually are), I assembled it myself.
Usually at the end of the week, we enjoy going out to eat in town. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as we’re not cooking it as this is sort of like a break from the weekday routine.
Thing is, when you eat out, you have to:
Fight for space
Fight for food and sometimes
Just watch other people fight (this is London on a Friday, after all).
Thus, it was really nice to discover that the bf had bought some roast pork rice from Chinatown, along with sushi from Yoshino Sushi (new store opened on Shaftsbury Avenue) for dinner, meaning we didn’t have to go out for dinner.
This was the siu-yuk (roast pork) rice from Yeung Cheng in Chinatown, across from Yoshino. For about £5, the portion was huge, and there were lots of roast pork with the impressive amount of rice. Best thing about it was the gravy that came with the rice. I could eat just plain rice with gravy all day.
This was the sushi selection from Yoshino. Although not technically sushi (fish on top of rice), and more, maki and uramaki, not so bothered as long as it tastes nice.
The sushi from Yoshino is always very fresh, and the rice is soft and chewy without having that horrible refrigerated feel to the rice. They also make what you want if there are none on offer, and most of the time, it’s cheaper than buying it from supermarkets (and much nicer).
Until I get those free meal offers, I’ll be posting about my eating-in meals each month.
4 comments:
Actually, what you cooked looks really nice! And the roasted pork... (drool...) In my case, I tend to do the following:
1) Sunday, cook something "big", enough for 4 or so meals. That's enough for one meal on Sunday, lunch for the following two days and probably dinner on one of the nights. Depending on other circumstances, I then cook something on Tuesday night that usually last until Thursday. After that, everything is fair game!
2) If I cook something that can go beyond Tuesday, I tend to reshape that main item into something "different". For example, if I make a stew, I can cut the cooked (but cooled) beef into smaller chunks, use the gravy and vegetables and make it a cottage/shepperd pie. If I have left-over chicken, I de-bone it and make fried rice out of it. It is a matter of being "creative" - or willingness to eat almost anything!
3) Not sure if this is applicable in the UK but you can get rottiserie chicken in the local supermarkets. They could cost you between CDN $7 to $9 (something around GBP 4.5).
As for the camera, so far, I have been invited only once to an opening (along with other local food bloggers). It is scheduled for next week but I don't think I will go. For personal reasons, if I visit a place, it will be on my own terms. So, patience, you will eventually be invited! ^_^
Fight for space
Fight for food and sometimes
Just watch other people fight
Hilarious!
Hi KimHo, really like comments, keep them coming! Your cooking style sounds quite similar to mine, and I do the 'modifying' thing too! It's more the willingness to eat anything rather than the creativity :)
Why aren't you going to the opening (restaurant, presumably?), free food, here we come...
Until I actually read the details, I thought the meat stew on potatoes waffle and the fish pie were from some top notch eateries!! Either you are a good cook, or you are a good photographer!! Or Both!!
Sure, after a week of stews and pies, chinese roast pork rice and sushi makis would be a most welcome change.
It is not the prospect of free food. Rather, when I blog about a restaurant, I hope my visit would be as unbiased as possible, i.e., that experience any customer would receive if they were to walk in and have a meal. These "free" meals usually tend to be extremely skewed since they are trying to please critics/reviewers and for PR, not regular customers - something I consider myself. That's what I meant when I wrote "visit a place on my own terms".
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