Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2011 to everyone! 

May you have lots and lots of this ...

And if I don't post anything between now and New Year ...

Happy New Year too! 

May all your dreams and hopes (food-related or otherwise) come true and may you all have a warm, love-filled festive season ahead!

*Time to start training that belly for the chocolates that are to be nommed.*

Phew It's Hot Here!

So anyway, it's been roughly a month since I last posted anything on this blog. In between dusting off the ... dust, and mopping up the sweat off my brows, I've also been travelling from the West to the East, packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking, eating, settling in, trying to get accommodation, furniture, food, and also something to pay for all of the above.

Needless to say, it's been warm. Like 29 degrees Celcius warm. Every day.

I would do one of those *warm happy jump* expressions so favoured on texts and blogs to show cute emotions, but as I lack any of that sorta cuteness, I'll just probably say it out the way I would.

Warm happy jump.

But I've been eating, too. Not while jumping, of course, as that frequently results in appendicitis or something similar. I've been eating mainly in food courts, and in fact, been eating in the same mall for about five days straight.

Nothing too unusual, I suppose, for those who know me ... re: Itsu.

I'll trump this untrumpable post with something a little more pictorial in a bit - as soon as I get round to downloading the pics of the dSLR. The places we've been dining at have not been too inspiring so far, so it's gonna have to be small, montaged photos for now. Plus, the one place I wanted to show off about was the one we ate at last night, but these posh places really should spend more on decent lighting, as all my pics came out somewhat meh.

Or maybe I should learn to use my camera better.

But anyhow, coming right up in a bit as soon as I finish procrastinating.

NABM update - From Manchester to London to ...

Singapore and hopefully more of Asia!!!



The 10 of you who read this blog more than once a month would (maybe, perhaps, hopefully) know that the blog started originally in London, and sometimes feature food from Manchester (where we lived for 2 years). While I've not been to as many places as I'd hoped to in London, I guess we still managed to cover off quite a few places, maybe more so than if I didn't have this blog to push me forward.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my time in London, and the food's been great too. Of course, I could've done without the 'Tube angst', and 'Oxford St Scrum', but those aside, we've explored many places, eaten many things and met many new friends whom we'll hopefully keep in touch with in the future.

Our adventures will soon be taking us to Singapore (fingers crossed), and from there, perhaps all around Asia. As someone from Asia, I've not actually been to that many places in the region, but since discovering the exciting and colourful cuisine of Vietnam and Korea (from London), I would definitely like to try the cuisine for real.

If there are any of you reading from Asia, do drop me a line and maybe recommend me some of your favourite places so that I can move out of my food rut and try some new stuff!

Why Singapore?

1. Better weather



OK so maybe the picture above doesn't best represent it, but at least it's warm.

2. (Hopefully) better food Although that remains to be seen - I shall keep you updated.

3. Easier navigation of transport systems (left is Singapore, right is London)



Over the next few weeks, I won't be posting as much as before (not too difficult to achieve) because we're going to be travelling around Europe for a bit, before leaving the UK. As it takes roughly about 3 months for any internet connection to be set up wherever you are, I should hopefully have quite a lot of new material to blog about so hope you don't mind the temporary slowdown of posts!

Before we leave, special mention goes to the serving staff at Itsu (More London branch), who, despite my having been there on an (almost) daily basis since April, still don't try to second guess my lunch order, and always make me feel like I could surprise them with a different order (who are we kidding). Vegetable detox, please.

Over and out (for the time being).

To warmer weather

The winter chill is in the air again. I know this because I can't stand at the bus stop for more than a minute before wishing I was back indoors. In the summer, that used to span at least ten minutes so I know that the sunny sunshiny summer days are possibly a thing of the past (or until next year, at least).

As all good Garganey ducks do, we shall be migrating to warmer weather soon to escape the chill. I'd like to go the whole hog and have a 'V' formation with the troops but alas, 2 people do not form a 'V', whichever way you look at it, so it shall have to be a horizontal 'I', at the best of times.

The eating continues, though, as any migrating bird with half a feather can tell you, and sometimes the consumption habits are ramped up to account for the extra energy used.

As such, I shall hopefully be posting more about places in London as we frantically eat our way around town before we leave.

Messing around

I'm just messing around with the layout, widgets, etc. and invariably some of the borders and fonts might look weird for a bit (or go missing completely). Please check back later when the husband's sorted it out, but for now, hope you don't mind the mess too much!

Tweeeeeeeet?

OK I am on Twitter!

If you have nothing better to do, and would like to have real time updates when I eat, you can find me at Twitter; username: notanotherbmenu

I am aware of the missing letters 'i' and 'g' in the name, but I couldn't fit the whole name in, and had to remove 2 letters, so the only ones I could remove, without actually making the name illegible, was 'i' and 'g'.

And now, I shall go find a widget that allows me to link my updates to the blog. The only one at the moment on Blogspot seems to be one with a bird featured on it.

Urbs and Spices

Recently discovered Urbanspoon London while I was searching for ways to increase my blopularity (blog popularity). First, I found a whole list of London blogs which I'd never known existed (these have now been added to the side bar), and then I discovered that these blogs were listed on Urbanspoon.

As quick as a steak in a frying pan, I put some of mine on there in a (slightly) desperate bid to be in with the cool crowd. However, they've only approved 2 so far (and I put on about 26), so we'll wait and see if I get accepted, or if I get boo-ed out of the kitchen.

Books I'm reading now

A little bit of spice to the usual variety of posts you get around here ...

As I'm usually writing about food, or all things food-related, how about we have something different for a change, and talk about what is on my Kindle. For those of you not in the know, the Kindle is the electronic reading device from Amazon, and I downloads lots of books from Amazon (Kindle format) into said Kindle - thus saving lots of space and weight in my bag.

This is NOT a paid post, by the way. No adverts, nothing. Just lacking in food posts, so I thought I'd fill it up somehow.

The Kindle holds about 3,500 books (I'll let you know when I get there, and if it does hold that many) but for now, I have about 25 - 30 sitting in there, waiting to be read.

The good thing about the Kindle is that if you happen to be reading a particularly crummy book (and you do get those now and again), I can just stop reading it and move on to the next yummy one. With real books, there's the whole thing of being on the Tube, and not having an alternative book to read, so you just end up reading th adverts like some zombied out commuter staring into space.

Or try to solve the guy-next-to-you's puzzle before he gets to it.

Anyhow, I've just finished reading my favourite book of the year (granted, I'm sure there are many good books out there, I just haven't found them so far). What is this book? I couldn't put it down the moment I started - but had to. Like, during meal times, at work, etc. but whenever I was free, I just HAD to get back to the book, to kinda imagine what the author was trying to say.

The book is 'Room' by Emma Donoghue (Kindle version £2.51).

I won't spoil the reading for anyone who's interested by telling you the whole plot, but basically it tells the story from the viewpoint of a 5 year-old boy called Jack. He's been in Room all his life, and the story tells you why and how he got there, and basically what happens from then on.

I absolutely loved the book, and had to tell the fiance what I'd read each day. You know a book is a good book when you almost feel upset upon completing it, because, what am I going to read after that?

M’sia – Pulau Perhentian

When we were in Malaysia, the fiance and I decided to spend a couple of days in Pulau Perhentian, which is located on the east coast of the peninsular. While we’d been to Pulau Redang before (40 minutes away from Perhentian), some of our friends were saying that it was getting too commercialised, and that it wasn’t as good as before so we thought, why not try someplace new. While Perhentian isn’t exactly untouched territory, it’s pretty good for a start.

(Lots and lots of pictures – similar pictures – to come, but since I don’t usually post scenic views here, it’s not really that many if you consider it in terms of average per post kinda thing)

There isn’t much structure to the way in which the pictures are organised, so I’ll do my best and tell the story as the pics come along. Sound good? OK.

This was a boat we saw on the way from the jeti to the resort. I’ve seen quite a few fishing boats before, but none which look as colourful and highly-stacked as this one.

The view from where I was sitting on the speedboat to the resort. There were dolphins near the front apparently, but of course I missed that, being in the middle looking out to the back of the boat and all that.

Something else I saw while missing out on the dolphins.

And then when everyone had had enough of the dolphins, I took a little stroll to the front, saw no dolphins, but continued to perch on the front looking into the boat. Kinda for dramatic effect or something.

Here’s another picture I took for effect while I was at the front of the boat. It’s not too often I bring the camera out to sea, so while I had it there, I was going to take as many pictures as I could.

The boat transported not just us holidaymakers, but also some eggs and what looked like a lot of fruits. Someone said they also took rubbish back from the island onto mainland.

After about 40 minutes on the boat, we neared the island. This was what we saw from the boat as we were approaching Tuna Bay Resort – one of the best resorts on the big island – although that’s not implying that it’s five stars or anything.

Dudes waiting to pull the boat in.

While I went slightly nuts snapping about 50 pictures before we even stepped onto the island, it turned out to be a good thing as we didn’t have sunlight like this for the next 3 days while we were there. It didn’t quite rain continuously either, but the skies were kinda grey and so, not the greatest for photo-taking.

Don’t actually have much to say about these pictures, but because I like them, I’ve posted them here.

The water taxi which took tourists either around the Besar island from one resort to another, to the tourist spots, and also from the Besar island to the Kecil island, which seemed to be the party-island where most of the backpackers go to, apparently.

This was the boat that took us from mainland to the island.

Water taxi prices.

The boat which took scuba divers out to sea. We didn’t go on this one as we only went snorkelling.

Another one.

The resort workers taking our luggage (joke) from the boat to the resort.

The deck chairs where we spent quite a lot of our time, mainly snoozing.

This was what the chalets looked like – not quite out chalet but as ours was next to a construction site, I decided this one looked better.

Snooze …

Seriously, how can you not wanna snooze when you have the heat, this view, and not much else to do?

On the first day there, our lunch which came as part of the package deal was some sort of cheese baked pasta. Surprisingly nice, though it was slightly weird how no one told us what we were having, but just kinda nodded at us as we sat down, said the food was coming soon, and then it was there on the table. I know we didn’t have much choice as to what we were having, but they could have at least told us what it was surely?

The next day, we had a buffet breakfast at the same place, and that was quite tasty also.

No matter where you are, even if you’re on a secluded island in the middle of the South China Sea, there is always … baked beans on toast.

Boots buy one get one free. Not the sunglasses.

The weather was kinda grey after the first day.

Pancakes and sausages on the second day.

We then went to feed some fishies by the pier. They go nuts for mushroom buns.

It was an amazing trip, despite not having much to do (and no TV). We went snorkelling (first day snorkelling was interesting, with us mainly trying to keep afloat and not go towards the huge rock covered with barnacles), we went kayaking (work those shoulders) and had nice walks by the beach. Saw lots of fish, really enjoyed ourselves, and would really recommend anyone to go there for a long weekend.

Who will win the World Cup?

Sat in front of the TV, photo-editing for the blog, while watching the World Cup finals. Who will win?

World Cup cake from the bakery just next to Borough Market – tastier than the real thing …

World Cup won by Spain - just in case you weren't watching telly, reading the papers, or surfing the net.

New York New York was so amazing I wanna go back on holiday Part 1

We were in New York in May, and boy oh boy was it amazing. It was like being in a movie set – a really, really, large (and very warm) movie set with lots of food all round. With calorie information everywhere also, not so good.

Being in Times Square was so surreal that it took me a while to actually realise I was in the middle of all those lights. It made Piccadilly Circus look like a poorly-funded advertising billboard. Here I am trying to cut down on greenhouse gases by using those low-energy light bulbs, but hey, it’s all OK. Who doesn’t need 30 billboards with moving pictures. Who, I ask you.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves (because I’m quite full after dinner and don’t feel like speaking much). Just had a lot of pasta bake, a story for another day.

Hot dog vendor. These stalls were everywhere, and they sold pretty much the same things. Wanted to try out the kebab meat with rice, but only managed to try the hot dog and salted pretzels.

These look good, but didn’t taste that great. They were really large and doughy (OK, maybe this was obvious to everyone, but I kinda thought it would be … nicer), and while the bits of crunchy salt were nice, it was also slightly weird to be eating something which tasted of NOTHING, and then lots of salt.

Watching Sex and The City (and numerous other New York based films) made me wanna try these hot dogs out. Would they be as nice as the Ikea ones, I wondered.

No, they weren’t. The sausage were kinda mushy, and the tomatoey thing on top of the sausage (some kinda ketchup onion thing) just didn’t do it for us. At US$3 a hot dog, could’ve spent it on something nicer.

See what I mean about those calories?

390 calories for only ONE DOLLAR?!?!? Sold. In fact, sold every day, as the poster suggests.

Sailors and soldiers were everywhere the weekend we were there.

Our first day view of Times Square. Big signboards, lots of lights, colour, warm heat coming from the ground, and the smell of excitement, fun and surrealism in the air.

Just like in the movies!

And because the dollar bills looked so much like the other bills (ie five dollars, ten dollars) we took so long to come up with any change at all when paying. Guess you get used to it after a while? Some people say they do have subtle differences, guess we weren’t there long enough to familiarise ourselves with it.

Insecure trash bins – prevalent in this competitive new society.

Yellow school buses in Chinatown, waiting outside a school.

Chinatown in New York – full of interesting sights, sounds, and mostly smells – but just on a much larger scale than the one in London. 

Somewhere underneath Brooklyn Bridge, near the Subway.

$1 for a burger, but HOW MUCH for parking?!?!?

And then we saw the Empire State Building, which, from the ground, took a lot of neck craning. Because there are so many tall buildings in the city, it was really hard trying to figure out if the day was just cloudy, or if we were standing underneath another tall building blocking out the sun. This building though, was incredibly tall and incredibly beautiful.

From the top of the building.

And to end this post, a view of Times Square at night.