I love pesto. I used to buy it in plastic round containers from the greek deli I worked at in Hobart. I haven't had any for a long time though, ever since coming back to Malaysia. Delicious by Ms Read serves up a really good basil pesto pasta but it's really pricey.

When mum brought back a bunch of basil from the morning market, I had a great idea! The ingredients were really expensive but this time I really wanted to do it, so I did.

The recipe, from Jamie Oliver

1/2 clove of garlic
pinch of salt and black pepper
3 handfuls of fresh basil, leaves picked and chopped
a handful of pine nuts, very lightly toasted
a good handful of grated Parmesan cheese
olive oil

method:
pound all of the above, in the above order using pestle and mortar or food processor if u're lazy like me. season to taste, then add more oil or cheese according to taste.

it looks ugly but is really yummy mixed through hot pasta.

speaking of pasta, I tried a low fat creamy pasta recipe.
it turned out okay but of course...nothing beats the real bacon+egg yolk carbonara recipe.

creamy pasta

1. fry some chopped onion and garlic in oil till fragrant.
2. add 300g of whatever processed meat you have lying around, ham or sausage or pepperoni. also add 1 cup sliced mushrooms and 1 cup peas.
3. pour in 1/2 cup chicken stock, let it simmer. mix up 1/2 cup of cornstarch with water, then mix that with 375ml evaporated milk. add that to the pan.
4. stir, let it boil and thicken.
5. sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve over cooked pasta.

qatari food
the boyfriernd's stint in the desert is coming to an end. these are his favourite foods from there. not sure if this is a Lebanese restaurant though. perhaps all arab foods are the same. after all they're all in the desert and have no other animals to ea except lamb and camels..right? and they all love their flatbreads, roasted meats and yoghurty things. and dates.

grilled chicken wings with lavash bread. i think. or pita bread?
looks like KFC to me though.

instant noodles - at asia cafe Who'd have thought that people would eat out... and order instant noodles!!?? but in Malaysia we do. this particular one is from a stall at asia cafe, called "spicy pork noodles" I liked it so I've ordered is a few times. You can choose whatever noodle you like, whether kuehteow, or mee suah or "vit's mee". It's like what you'd cook at home but with added pork slices, tofu,meatballs, egg and bokchoy. I forgot to tell them to omit the liver slices though. i hate liver.

Sashimi is one of my favourite foods. One thing i really enjoyed at the sydney fish market was fresh sashimi, sliced up from a thick slab. I remember eating it with Foonch and Brenda in 2003. anyway, it's so fresh. look!! here's the oyster shuck-er
freshly shucked oyster

Ben and I had a relaxing afternoon at secret recipe after a rather tiring hot day wandering around the [very boring] national museum and the [very hot] lake gardens in KL. I generally don't like going outdoors in Malaysia because it's so hot and sticky and sweaty and my skin doesn't react well to the sun. This is why malaysians like being indoors in shopping centres and such.

The apple crumble cheesecake at secret recipe was..... very dense. it wasn't very apple-y though. but the nuts gave it good crunch and flavour. and it wasn't too sweet so those who dont like their desserts sweet [!? ?? ] would like this one.

This caramel cheesecake at secret recipe was so yummy. it was creamy with a biscuit base but not too sweet. just nice and favourful. with a hint of oats in the base. im not sure whether it was really oaty or not. the caramel topping looked like it was gonna be sickly sweet but it wasnt, thankfully.


the charkuehteow at pin kee in SS15 is quite nice i heard. but when im there i like to order the "buttermilk" chicken which is a misnomer because it's not made from buttermilk at all, perhaps from butter AND milk, but certainly not buttermilk! [which is an acidic by product of butter churning]

I've been too lazy to blog here for some time now but since i've some food pics to show, here they are!!

Singapore...... is a very very impressive country. its streets are clean and safe, its citizens rich. everyone's educated, and everyone speaks english. yes i wish malaysia were like singapore. we could've been if not for our bad governance. hope that'll change soon with the new ppl in.

anyway i just got back from there...and i found it really hard finding good food.

first off, we went to cafe cartel at raffles city plaza. it's very famous and its "st louis pork ribs" were so hyped up so we thought we'd try it out. it was quite disappointing. it wasn't horrible but it wasnt that great either. the sauce was.... just sweetish, not savory enough.


the pasta was tasteless too although it LOOKED good.
either they forgot the salt or forgot the cheese.

service was most disappointing. they got our orders wrong 5 times!! and we waited more than an hour for everything to arrive. it was quite chaotic, so i reckon it would've been the same in the kitchen too which wold explain the lack of taste in the food.
however the coffee was okay.

i had this oreo espresso.

anyway, apparently one CAN get good food in Singapore but you have to get recommendations from friends.
one can never go wrong with sakae sushi, my favourite japanese place!
i love edamame.

and of course i always love salmon sushi.


was too busy eating before i realized i wanted to snap a pic, so here it is, our meal half eaten!!
---------------------------------------------------------------
at secret recipe, i ordered the "singapore" laksa, which was.... just like ordinary curry laksa.


now this, this is the real deal!!! the best fishhead meehoon EVER. at AH SOON fishhead meehoon restaurant at Kuchai Maju. [corner lot, next to kinrara mamak] the soup was so tasty, with tomato wedges and salted veg slices, and creamy evaporated milk. and the meehoon they use is the thick kind. each bowl is really huge too so it's very worth it for just RM6.90 [i think? dont rmbr coz i didnt pay....] you can choose from a variety of combinations, whether it's just fishhead only or fish head with fish paste, or lotsa other stuff i dont rmbr. i especially like the fish paste.

some Wor Tip at little taiwan. yummy.