serene’s posterous

I had some frozen fish filets from Trader Joe's that had been sitting in the freezer for way too long.  Since it has been quite cold in our apartment, I thought of making fish soup.  Chinese-style clear gingery soup with fish slices and tomato.

I fried about a knob's worth of sliced ginger with sesame oil, then added some Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and water to make the soup.  I added some quartered roma tomatoes into the soup too. 

I then sliced the defrosted fish into fairly thick slices and added salt, pepper, a dash of corn starch and a bit of sesame oil to marinate the fish slices.  Since the fish slices cook so quickly, I just dropped the slices into the simmering soup and fished them out just as they looked about cooked. 

I cooked some xiao bai chai, enoki mushrooms and spring onions in the broth, and then re-added the fish slices to the broth for my meal with a steamy bowl of rice.  The soup was a touch too oily, so I think I will have to use less sesame oil when browning the ginger.  Also, some kiam chye (salted green mustard) would probably add some flavor to the soup.  Otherwise, the soup had a mild fish taste that sort of reminds me of the sliced fish soup you can get in Singapore.

Our Thanksgiving trip to New Mexico featured English muffins at the breakfast spreads in the hotels.  I came home wanting to eat English muffins, so with a new jar of blueberry jam and English muffins from Trader Joe's, I have been getting my fix every morning.  Yesterday's breakfast included clementines, a glass of milk and a mug of hot Harmutty tea with a touch of sweetened condensed milk.

I got this on a whim at Trader Joe's.  Surprisingly, for practically Frankenstein food (the chips aren't real potatoes since the first 2 ingredients are potato flour and potato starch), they taste great.  Light and crispy, and they don't have that oily finger feel of potato chips.  They have probably too much salt, but that didn't stop me from eating way too many chips. 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), when I bought another bag recently, they didn't seem as tasty.  I think I just got tired of that slightly artificial not-quite potato chips taste.

I have been eating slightly fancier chocolate bars recently, at a rate of approximately a bar a week.  Not sure if all that chocolate is a good thing but it is always nice to have chocolate.  Eu-Jin bought me this chocolate bar to try a few weeks ago.  I had never eaten chocolate with lavender in it.  Admittedly, it is a bit weird, that whiff of lavender as you bite into the chocolate.  I wouldn't say it is bad tasting, but it is strange to have this flowery smell and taste that sort of reminds you of soap.

2 cafes side-by-side, offering similar breakfast and brunch items.   Now, that we are living so close to both cafes, they are the default brunch spot when we have a hankering for brunch.  I have eaten at Cafe Brioche 3 times but only once at Joanie's Cafe, mainly because the wait for a table is just shorter over at Cafe Brioche.  The food's tasty at both places.  But I think the eggs are better at Joanie's Cafe, and it has really tasty hash browns too.  I do love the oatmeal french toast and the lovely large mugs of coffee at at Cafe Brioche, so I think they are about equal in terms of food.  I have to say a meal at either of these places is huge! Today, after eating brunch at Cafe Brioche at about 10.30am, I didn't have anything to eat again until about 7pm.

We rarely head all the way to Cupertino these days, even though we used to go about twice a month a couple of years back.  But we had gone there twice in 2 weeks, and unsurprisingly Eu-Jin and I ate the exact same things both times.  I had Shui Kau noodles, while Eu-Jin had the fish congee at Joy Luck Place bistro (Food's good, but service is unattentive).  And I got green milk tea with pearls from Fantasia for dessert.  Yum!

We had the tastiest thosai (also known as dosa) in a while at the morning reception (after the wedding dinner the night before) of our friends' wedding in LA.  The groom's parents had hired caterer to make thosai for the guests on request, in addition to other tasty Indian food (mostly south Indian food I think).  The spiced potato filling (does that mean it is a masala thosai?) was particularly flavorful. 

I haven't had thosai in a while, but I sometimes purchase it for breakfast in the weekends when I am in Singapore.  It was great to get a taste of home!  Now it is time to look for a place that sells tasty thosais in the Bay Area...it would be several more months before I get to go back to Singapore for a visit.

And congrats to Aarthi and Vijay!

We went there for lunch this week since it was less than 2 blocks away from our apartment and it always looks crowded.  We had the lunch special which was red snapper ceviche on tostada, shared salsa and chips, and agua fresca jamaica.  Overall I liked the food, but my tostada was burnt tasting, and the salad that came with the lunch special came only after we had finished eating the rest of the food.

I have heard about this restaurant from various people.  About how it is a hole in the wall and it serves excellent brown rice sushi.  The restaurant is about 2 blocks away, down the street from our new apartment.  We had a craving for sushi, so we just called the restaurant to order a combo, a nigiri deluxe, hamachi and sake hosomaki, and went there a bit later to pick up the food.  It was all very tasty.  This is the first time I have had brown rice sushi, but the nutty flavor of the rice does bring an interesting dimension to the sushi.  The fish was very fresh too.  We would definitely be indulging in sushi more frequently now.

Before moving, I decided to reduce some of the pantry items we had lying around by doing some baking.  It was my first attempt at banana bread.  I used a recipe that was oil based rather than butter based because I didn't have any butter left at home.  I didn't add the lemon rind, reduced the sugar to slightly over 1/2 cup and used a mixture of chocolate chips and walnuts.  It didn't turn out perfect because I think I overmixed the batter causing the bread to be a little heavy.  I tried the same recipe again in the new apartment, but I guess the loaf browned too quickly in the smaller oven, and I ended up with not so great banana bread again.

I think I am going to try a butter based banana bread next.  Perhaps this recipe that came from Molly Wizenberg's book.