Archive for January, 2008
Vinegar and Oil Tasting
Karen brought a couple of her vinegar and oil for us to taste as she did not have to prepare much for the community meal the next day. Basically, she’ll made the Chili in Indian Sauce for the community meal entree and salad for the sides. We helped Karen to wash and chop two big boxes of greens to be used for salad the next day. The food bank also donated two large platters of cookies for the community meal and that takes care of the dessert.
Karen brought a couple of oil and vinegar for us to taste and she also shared a few vinagrette dressing recipes with us. Here are what we tasted:
A sherry vinegar which has quite a strong sour taste. A lemon infused olive oil which has a very nice lemon flavour. A balsamic vinegar which is mellow and smooth, not too sour. The grape seed oil does not have any flavour in it which is very good for cooking because of its neutral taste.
We also compares the oil with an ordinary olive. We did the tasting with some bread. Bing a typical Chinese who do not serve salad at home, I have very little knowledge of vinegar and oil. When I walk into a gourmet store with racks of vinegar and oil, I’m just lost. Anyway, it is a good experience to taste some of these vinegar and oil which I have never used before. So, what is your favourite vinegar and oil?
Popularity: 7% [?]
Chili in Indian Sauce
Karen made a Chili using some Indian Sauce she got from the food bank. It is a good way to introduce new flavour to your family to expand their culinary experience. This is a vegetarian dish. Karen served the chili with basmati rice and salad greens on the side.
The Chili in Indian Sauce is so simple and quick to prepare. The sauce is sold in microwaveable pouch which is ready to eat.
The sauce Karen used is Baingan Bharta which is roasted aubergines in a tangy sauce infused with rich Indian spices. The sauce is not too spicy.
The sauce can be served on itself but Karen used it to make a chili dish. This way, she can served a large group of people in a small budget in the community kitchen.
To make this Chili in Indian sauce is very simple. First, drain the canned beans of your choice.
Saute some fresh vegetables like onion, celery or green onion in a pan. The vegetables add freshness and flavour to the dish.
Once the vegetables are softened, add the pouch of Indian sauce.
Add the beans and some chopped tomatoes (if you like) and stir to mix well. You just need to ensure all the ingredients are heat through.
Here you are, a simple, flavorful and nutritious meal in less than 15 minutes.
Besides the Baingan Bharta (aubergine sauce), there are other flavours like Paneer Makhani (cottage cheese cooked in rich creamy tomato gravy), Sarson Ka Saag (fresh mustard leaves with aromatic herbs and spices) and Dal Tadka (Dal sauce).
Popularity: 11% [?]
Roast Pork Rice Paper Roll
Vanessa also made some Roast Pork Rice Paper Rolls to serve with the Pineapple Fried Rice. The roast pork is bought from the best roast pork stall at Parker Place in Richmond.
The Roast Pork Rice Paper Roll is best served warm, unlike the Vietnamese Shrimp Rice Roll which is served cold.
Ingredients
- 1 lb roast pork
- 1 package of rice paper
- 3 carrots
- 1 large red onion
- 1 bag of bean sprouts
- Hoisin Sauce to taste
Click on the link below for the instructions.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Pineapple Fried Rice
Vanessa kicked start the the South Arm Community Kitchen with two of her favourite dishes. The first dish is Pineapple Fried Rice. Many Chinese made fried rice at home. It’s a good way to use left over rice and meat. Nanzaro often asks me to cook extra rice so that he can fry rice for supper or breakfast by himself.
Vanessa kicked it up a notch by using the pineapple shell to plate the Pineapple Fried Rice. This is just like what we get at high end restaurant which comes pricey. Vanessa showed us how to make this from our own kitchen.
We simply love the presentation of this Pineapple Fried Rice.
Ingredients
- 1 whole pineapple, not too ripe.
- 4 cups cooked rice. preferably overnight left over rice
- 4 slices Cooked ham
- 4 eggs
- a bunch of green beans
- Soy Sauce
- Salt to taste
Click on the link below for the instructions.
Popularity: 16% [?]
Cucumber Cafe in Richmond
I’m so glad that the kids are back to school and we’re back to normal routine. Polly and I take our first opportunity to have a ladies’ day out at the Cucumber Cafe in Richmond. We had a long break in December as either one of us was not feeling well or our kids were not feeling well. Well, winter is the flu and cold season, :(.
Cucumber Cafe is located at 10211 St. Edwards Dr, adjacent to the new Sandman Signature Hotel. It’s a new cafe in the block. The first thing we noticed was the good service. The waiter opened the door to greet us warmly.
The Cafe is cozy and warmly decorated with a real fireplace and the brightly orange coloured seats bring the warm morning glory into this place.
As usual, Polly and I were looking for cheesecake to endeavor. Luckily, there is one in the menu.
We ordered the Creme Brulee Cheesecake for $4.95. This cheesecake is rich and served with caramel sauce.
We also ordered a Warm Apple Brown Betty which is apples baked with brown sugar and cinnamon, topped with streusel and served with vanilla ice-cream and caramel sauce. The warm apples and the cold ice-cream is just a perfect marriage. This dessert costs $3.95.
Polly ordered a hot chocolate while I had coffee. The hot chocolate is served with marshmallow which and whipped cream. The hot chocolate costs $2.95 and the coffee costs $2.30. The coffee comes with free refill.
I would recommend this place for their good service and quite reasonably price menu. Before I shred the receipt, I noticed this printed message that Cucumber Cafe is honoured as one of Canada’s Top Ten New Restaurants in 2007 by Where Magazine.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Coco Chilli in Richmond
Update 19-Jul-2008: Please note that Coco Chilli had now closed. In it’s place now is Pho 99. Click here to read the blog post for Pho 99.
Alexandra Road has a large concentration of restaurants in Richmond. That 1/2 mile stretch from Garden City and the No 4 Road is lined with restaurants. If there is one place we lunch out a lot on weekends, it is here. We go to Kam Do and Silver Tower quite a bit.
Despite all the visits, we had never stepped into Coco Chilli before. We knew it was there, who would not have noticed the bright yellow facade. It does looked a bit teenager’ish to us and without taking a second glance we thought that it is a bubble tea house or something like that. We were wrong.
I can’t really figure out what type of a restaurant Coco Chilli is. They have quite a bit of spicy and curry dishes. On one hand, I would say that they are a South East Asian restaurant but then it’s something about it that says that it is a cafe style restaurant.
Whatever it is, they have a very extensive menu. What we like best is that there are lots of pictures on them. Maybe it was bad timing but when we placed our order, all our top choices were not available. They apologized and told us that it is either that the ingredients had not arrived (oysters) or they had ran out of ingredients.
Surprisingly the restaurant is absolutely packed with people. This place must be popular. Despite their popularity, I must add that the bowl I was given had morsels of dried up food still sticking on it. Yucks!
For drinks we ordered their Coconut Milk with Jelly. It was super rich but refreshing and extremely yummy. We love it but at the same time know that coconut milk is not exactly very healthy.
It was still mummy’s choices that weekend’s eating out. So, mummy kiboshed any desire for fried rice for Arkensen and Nanzaro. We knew they wanted anything with lots of carbo in it. So, we introduced to them the Belacan Vermicelli. Oh, the boys sulked alright but when they took the first bite, they were sold. (See that, boys? Mummy sure knows what you like right?).
The Belacan Vermicelli smells good (to us anyway) when it was brought to our table. For those of you who knows what Belacan is, you will know it does give a pungent smell and flavour. If you like belacan, you will like this.
Suanne and I decided to order two main dishes and supplement them with rice. We ordered their Mussels in Curry. We had wanted to order their Oyster in Eggs but since they did not have oysters, we settled for this. It was great.
The curry was thick with only a little spiciness to it. What we love was their humongous and fleshy mussels. We counted twelve of them there. It was absolutely marvelous. If we come here again, we will order this again.
The Fried Green Beans on the other hand was just OK. They don’t taste very fresh (no, it’s not that they tasted stale … not at all). We expected such green beans to have a certain crunch to it which to us is a sign of freshness. But the sweet spicy sauce makes up for it.
We’ll go again to Coco Chilli and hopefully the next time they will have everything they have on the menu … and also 100% clean eating utensils.
Have any of you Richmond readers ever been to Coco Chilli before?
Popularity: 14% [?]
