Oh found you!

Maybe I should explain myself a little before I begin. So, after the post below, having eaten a lot in the month of December, I finally started my new job in January. It’s not that I stopped eating from there on, but I’ve been so busy that even the thought of taking any photos or blogging was enough to make me panic a little.

But anyway, all that is a story for another day.

We’re currently in the UK for a few weeks, winding down and relaxing a little, so the fingers started itching for the camera and this blog once again. Having arrived on Monday, we went for a short 2-day break to London on Wednesday, and boy oh boy are there quite a few Union Jacks (and all Union Jack-related items) around London (Jubilee weekend is next week).

View from Embankment Bridge – Southbank-side.

Bring out the moth-bitten summer clothing. Warm weather is here (for a few days).

Saw this guy sitting by Southbank as I was crossing the bridge and found his posture and colour coordination too interesting to not be captured.

Standing on the bridge, looking down, there was this array of …

Skateboards.

Man doing a bit of Baywatch-style boating across the Thames.

My usual fruit stall outside Embankment Station.

Rubbish exchange rates and definitely pretty sure no appreciation in value but at least you get nice colours.

 

Joooooobleeee

Union Jack made entirely of cupcakes!

Changing the lightbulb.

OK just a few pictures to start off with. More coming soon – food related ones too.

Egg Cake or Eggette, Chinatown, London

Bet you didn't know that, huh?

All along, my friends and I have been calling this an Egg Cake, because the little ball-things look like small eggs. Then, I tried Googling it to find out what it's called, and whaddya know, it actually has a name!

From Wikipedia:

An eggette is a kind of spherical pancake or ball waffle popular in the Cantonese-speaking regions of China, including Hong Kong and Macau. The food item is also referred to as an egg puff, bubble waffle or by its Cantonese name, gai daan jai and is made from egg, sugar, flour, and light evaporated milk. They are best served hot, and often eaten plain. They can also be served with fruit and flavors such as strawberry, coconut or chocolate. They are sometimes referred to as "Hong Kong cakes" in Chinatowns across America, especially in New York.

Wowzers.

Anyhow, when the husband and I first moved to London from Manchester, we came by the Egg Cake Man in front of the Golden Gate Cake Shop in Chinatown. We bought one, enjoyed it very much, and then kinda never happened to find the Egg Cake Man again.



Then, sometime a few weeks ago, we happened to go by the more secluded bit of Chinatown by the NCP (kinda where Jen Cafe is), and you can imagine my excitement when I whiffed a whiff of the familiar pancake / waffle smell going by my nostrils.



This man was standing there, making Egg Cake for a small child who looked a little more excited than me.



He was really friendly, and for once, I wasn't yelled at while taking a photo, and neither did I have to use the 'divert and snap' method of taking photos for this blog. We started a conversation about where I'm from, and how his friend used to have kaya for brekkie, and so he started using them in the egg cakes too. Then, more and more customers started requesting for the kaya version and also asking him where he bought the kaya from.



I stood there watching him as he poured the egg mixture batter onto the lower part of the machine, and then with a swift turn of the handle, the other side of the machine was coated with the same batter that would have swirled around, creating a bubble cake.



I was wondering how he'd put the kaya into the eggy bubbles, and he himself must have pondered that quite a few times, because instead of somehow filling the space with kaya, he just slathered it on to the pancake when it was done.



See the kaya sitting lusciously on top? Mmmm it was good. Like, sweet and warm, yet slightly crunchy when first bitten into, and then soft and chewy. Oh yummy.

And, since people have been asking the guy where he gets his kaya from, I didn't wanna lose out, so I asked him it, and here is it.



This doesn't actually say where it is, but it's from one of the grocery shops on the same row as Four Seasons in Chinatown, on the main row, and it's something like New Loon Moon. The kaya itself is slightly too yellow compared to what I'm used to, but it tastes alright.

Cafe De Hong Kong, 47 Charing Cross Road London WC2H 0AN (directly across from Leicester Square Station)

No pics of the restaurant, I’m afraid, because I was too busy figuring out what to order, and forgot that I needed the pics for the blog.

Also, I’ve not been blogging for a while because the only place we ate at in the last week or so was Asakusa. Again! Seems we kinda like it, and we actually tried something new from there, so I might blog about that soon.

Anyway, today, JC and myself decided to have a girly day – something we’d not done before. Not in London anyway. The fiance is away on his stag do so after I’d done all the ironing / laundry / vacuuming / cooking / anything else I could find to do, I went into town and met up with JC at Selfridges.

Blink Bar, to be precise. Because we needed to trim those brows!

For £17, the very friendly ladies threaded those stray hairs from the brow, and despite the slightly disturbing ripping sound of brows coming off brow, it was quite an enjoyable (and slightly therapeutic) experience which I’d highly recommend to those of you with brows requiring trimming.

Flushed from the excitement of having brows to be proud of, we headed off to the Foodhall and bought hundreds and hundres of grams of Jelly Bellies, and Pick’n’Mix chocolate. Then, with the aim of eating as much as possible within the few hours we were there, we headed off to Chinatown for some nosh. What nosh though, was the question? As we usually depended on the guys to finish almost all the food we ordered, it was strange trying to figure out how much the 2 of us could actually consume. Having done some thorough analysis, it was determined that we’d be quite rubbish at eating lots, and so, we decided to have little of little, and where better to have it than at Cafe de Hong Kong – HK-style street food to be nibbled between us.

And because I only remembered that I had to blog about something when the food arrived, I don’t have any pics of the place, the menu, etc. Anyhow, this is the fishball and turnip in curry, which was about £5. The curry sauce, while being slightly watery, was nice and had a good amount of spice to it.

The turnip was basically boiled mooli, and there’s not much I can say about mooli that hasn’t been said before. The fishballs kinda tasted like the frozen ones I buy (to be eaten with instant noodles), meaning, they were slightly hard when I bit into them without much chewiness usually associated with fishballs.

Like I’m such an expert on fishballs.

We also shared the grilled chicken with black pepper sauce, and potatoes and vegetables on the side (£8). Much better than what we expected from this restaurant. To be honest, I kinda thought it was gonna be some reheated style chicken, but when it came, the juicy, tender piece of chicken accompanied by the flavoursome sauce, served all smartly on the plate, left me very impressed.

The potatoes too, were done very well. I can’t say for sure if it’s prepared fresh by the restaurant, or if it’s cooked from frozen, because again, I wasn’t expecting a Chinese cafe to be coming out with such tasty roasted potatoes, but hey, it just goes to show that I’m either easily impressed, or easily fooled.

This is one of my non-Chinese orders, which I hardly get to eat when dining out with other friends because no one else likes it, but JC does so I took the opportunity to get my fingers on these sesame prawn toasts (£3).

I must admit, I wasn’t expecting anything as good as this. I thought that the waiter would bring round a plate of pitiful looking flat toast which had been deep fried, and I would have been satisfied with that, but when the waiter put this impressive looking plate on the table, I was almost gobsmacked for a second. Almost.

Not only was each piece generously filled with chewy fish paste (maybe prawn?), the sesame covering was even, and crispy. It didn’t taste too greasy to me, and I enjoyed each mouthful of the toast dipped in the curry sauce from the first dish.

Fried chicken wings (£4) to share, another dish which was perfect for the girly chats and people-watching. The chicken wings were big ones (they seem to be getting smaller and smaller at some restaurants these days), and deep fried with a blend of spices – didn’t feel too greasy, and I enjoyed the crispy skin with juicy meat beneath.

All in all, I had an immensely fun day with JC. Who knew eyebrow threading could be so much fun!

Skewers in Chinatown and frozen yoghurt in Snog

I was wandering around Chinatown one lunchtime and noticed a few new shops around the place. Shops in Chinatown open and close like elevator doors almost every other day, and they all look suspiciously alike (something about cost cutting and using the same decor, maybe …) so it’s sometimes not the most obvious when a new shop has replaced the previous one.

When I walked by this one (which I shall call the Skewer Shop because I don’t know what it’s called and it has no sign outside the shop), I had to stop for a moment and look inside because before this, it was a shop selling really pretty crepes. Now, by the window, were lots and lots of skewers with meat, fishballs, squid, vegetables and that all waiting to be cooked.

A huge, bubbling pot of the hottest chilli oil soup thing you'll ever taste.

I saw someone being served, and the skewers were cooked in a big, boiling pot full of a fiery-looking red soup base. Quite a good idea, I thought, kinda like a mobile hot pot, Szechuan style.

This we had to try, so on Saturday, we went with empty tummies, and selected a few skewers – lamb, beef, squid, and fishball. After the skewers were cooked in the soup, some cumin salt and coriander were sprinkled on top of the skewers before we quickly went to find a place in which to eat the stuff (not much space for eating in the shop).

While it is a new concept in Chinatown (nothing like this around), and while I do like the concept of cooking skewers of little nibbles in a pot of soup (lok-lok, Malaysian style), I found the taste quite difficult to like. I’m not too keen on things which are too spicy, and when I say that, I usually mean the numbing spiciness found in Szechuan food.

The soup was also perhaps a little too salty, because after I’d eaten the squid (which tends to absorb more soup), my tongue felt really weird. Kinda like tingly because of the spice, and also almost like it wanted to be hydrated again, mainly due to the salt which just wouldn’t go away.

I’m sure lots of people will absolutely adore this place, especially if they’re fans of the spicy hotpot, but this wasn’t for me.

We then went to the Stanley Donwood art exhibition at The Outsiders in Soho, and while I didn’t think it’d take too long to get round, I didn’t reckon it’d take all of 2 minutes only either. We went into the shop which looked like one of those half-renovated shops, there were a few painting inside, and downstairs, a few more paintings and a little hole-in-the-wall with a movie showing on loop.

Snog, 9 Berwick Street, Soho, London W1F 0RG

Then, to fill the half hour we had between the art exhibition and our dinner at Asakusa (more on this later!), we decided to get some frozen yoghurt from Snog in Soho.

I really like this place – colourful lights, a great place to watch people go by in Soho, and plenty of lovely, non-fat yoghurt. What’s not to like? Oh, yes, the price. It’s a little pricey, about £4.95 for the ‘Classic’ (ie medium-sized) with 3 toppings.

Look at these lights.

Because there was a deal on the ‘Classic’, and because I always go for the deal (though only after careful calculation), we went for the spiced apple yoghurt base, with 3 toppings.

For the toppings, we had blueberries …

Chocolate brownie …

... and lovely, chewy, mochi.

Fun afternoon in town, with the excitement of Asakusa to come in the next post!