Spoil-her Series: Simple recipes for men.
Under 5 ingredients, Under 20 bucks. Maximum brownie points.

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of milk chocolate morsels (I used Nestle)
• 1 punnet of strawberries
• Long bamboo skewers / satay sticks

Directions:

Melt chocolate according to packet instructions in a microwave safe bowl.

Slowly stir the warm chocolate until it’s smooth, as the choc chips tend to retain its shape out of the microwave.

Attach a strawberry to the end of a skewer and dip it in the melted chocolate bowl.

Rotate the strawberry for even coverage, and rest on wax paper for chocolate to solidify. It will only take a few minutes.

Do not leave these in the fridge, as it will cause the strawberries to condensate under the chocolate

Arrange them in a vase for maximum wooing.

David Chang, a Korean-American born in Washington DC is the chef and owner of a string of successful restaurants that has local New Yorkers addictively queueing up outside every door and fighting over every online booking. Since missing out on Chang’s visit to the Melbourne food and wine festival last March, I thought – what the heck, let’s fly to New York for 3 days and check out what the hype is all about. While I couldn’t manage to secure a booking at the twelve-seater Momofuku Ko, I had always wanted to try Ssäm Bar, especially when it hit 26th on this year’s San Pellegrino top 50 list. Can a mishmash of Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine really be ranked so highly in the world? Amongst the other competitors on the Top 50, Momofuku Ssäm Bar was both an exception in price (if you’re sharing the Bo Ssäm) and atmosphere. With it’s loud echoing wooden space, long communal tables and counter dining that seats no more than 50, staff with a quick and casual service attitude; you won’t be expect white linen, polished cutlery or a dinner jacket anywhere.

A carnivorous menu that embraced the wonderful, magical animal¹ it would make Homer Simpson proud, especially when the term “We do not serve vegetarian-friendly items” so explicitly spelt out in writing, this “meathead” restaurant definitely isn’t a place I would bring my mother (nor my Jewish friends) to.

Knowing the amount of pork that would soon arrive on our table, I thought it would only be appropriate to to begin our palate with two seafood dishes from ‘Raw Bar’.

The cured hamachi with edamame, horseradish, pea leaves was delightful, the fish slightly smokey and paired with edamame puree and fried genmai (brown rice) pops for a melange of textures.

The santa barbara uni with whipped tofu, tapioca (just like in bubble tea), and shrimp crackers was a very interesting combination. The whipped tofu was texturally like a soft custard, paired with chewy taioca bubbles and crushed crisps.

A favorite pork dish available across all Momofuku establishment would surely be their steamed buns with melting pork belly, hoisin sauce, finely sliced cucumbers and scallions. The turbo charged gourmet char siu bao proved very popular with the boys, I saw their eyes light up with excitement!

Momofuku’s bo ssäm has to be ordered in advance through their website, where online reservations open at 10am New York time every morning. This meant staying up past midnight Sydney-time two weeks ahead of the reservation date in order to swiftly click my way through (with practice on previous nights) to score a table of 10 and an order of whole roasted pork shoulder. The entire pork butt costs $200, and it’s recommended for serving six to eight people – but with advice from my friend Caroline, having a group of 10 people made the event much less overwhelming (and very cost effective), leaving plenty of space for appetizers and desserts.

Bo Ssäm (Ssäm meaning “wrapped” in Korean) is a traditional Korean dish in which steamed pork is wrapped in a lettuce leaf, accompanied by ssäm jiang (korean bbq sauce), kimchi and ginger scallion sauce.

David Chang uses the highly praised Berkshire pork (also known as Kurobuta in Japan), which is dubbed the “Wagyu of the pork world”. The whole bone-in pork butt is soaked in a brine of brown sugar and salt overnight, then rubbed with more brown sugar, salt and spices and roasted in the oven for over 8 hours.

Served at the table with it’s caramelized honey brown skin and meat so tender it falls apart with a touch of your disposable wooden chopsticks, the rich slow roasted shoulder of pork would defy the most determined of dieters.
 

A dozen of small delicate raw oysters on the half shell and 3 individual bowls of condiments (ssäm jiang, kimchi and ginger scallion sauce) arrive straight after and our waiter begins to explain the best way to devour our bo ssäm.

The first ssäm should be eaten without sauce – just a few shreds of pork, a raw oyster and a spoonful of rice wrapped in lettuce leaf. Our table of 10 (including 2 very drunk ones) fell completely silent for at least five minutes as we all had our first bite.

After the first ssäm we can start experimenting with the sauces. “Pork, kimchi, oysters..it’s the fucking magic combination.” Chang couldn’t have described it better.

We had enough leftovers for three lucky people who would have been the envy of their colleagues during lunch time the next day.

A very generously stacked chocolate chip cake with passion fruit curd, chocolate crumbs, coffee buttercream was purchased by my dear Deborah to sweeten our night (and send everyone to a serious food coma). This Milk Bar favourite was once available by the slice, but it can only be purchased whole these days. We couldn’t have thought of a better excuse, since we were in such a large group!

I also had the liberty to meet David after our meal, and after a few cocktails I may have gossiped about our local chefs. Oops!

Momofuku Ssäm Bar
207 Second Ave., at 13th St. New York, NY 10003
212-254-3500
Lunch 11am to 6pm daily. Dinner 6pm to 2am daily.

 ¹The Wonderful Magical animal was referred to in an episode of the Simpsons:

Homer: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Lisa, honey, are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: [Chuckles] Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Recently I purchased from Pastry Perfection: It is an online site who not only offers next day delivery to Sydney CBD, but the delivery fee is also free of charge!

Chocolate bete noir cake

This Bete noir cake is a “Decadent gluten free chocolate cake filled with a rich chocolate ganach and garnished with chocolate straws” and it was simply AMAZING. We normally buy all our cakes from the Lindt Cafes and although this Bete noir cake may not be as pretty and perfect as Lindt, all 9 of us have collectively voted this one better than Lindt.

You should try it two days old, warmed up with a microwave too. We’re not ashamed to admit we love it.

Ease of online shopping? Check. Free delivery? Check. Next day delivery? Check. Gluten free? CHECK! 

Visit: http://www.cakesdelivered.com.au/

I improvised on the recipe, and it turns out I used waaay too little sugar. I have a bad habit of making all my recipes low cal. What’s the fun in that?

Filling: Using a mortar and pestle, grind seasame seeds to a powder. Add sugar (add a lot more than I did!) and continue grinding. Then I added sesame powder – at this point you can add a little water to make the filling ‘pastey’.

The perfect glutinous rice flour to water ratio is around 3 cups rice flour to 1.5 (and a little bit more) water. I boiled my water with a few pieces of chinese rock sugar to sweeten it first. (you can also add food colouring as well, if you want, say, pink tang yuens) Pour the hot water into the flour and start stirring until it starts to stick together loosely. At this point, dust your hands with flour and start kneading. Knead for about 5 mins – continually dusting with flour. Glutinous rice flour is very sticky to work with. Pack it into a large ball and leave for 20 minutes under a damp tea towel.

Pinch a small ball of dough, roll between your palms to form a ball and flatten it into a disk around .8cm thick. Poke the centre slightly with your index finger, and spoon your sesame filling in the middle. Pinch the dough back together evenly with the filling in the middle, and re-roll into a ball between your palms.

Now repeat it a gazillion times – if you have a large family to feed. Store each finished tangyuen under a damp tea towel so it doesn’t dry up. You have to work very quickly as the dough will not be smooth as soon as it starts to dry.

Boil half a pot of water, add glutinous rice wine and rock sugar to taste, and add your tongyuen. It will all sink to the bottom at first, but as soon as they float up to the top, it is ready to serve!

The result? The tangyuen was amazing – but the filling could be sweeter! We forgot to take photos… so here is one I found which is very similar:

You can be creative with your fillings – red bean, green tea, choc peanut, cherry blossom?
Instead of serving them in a sweet soup, you can also roll them in seasame powder to make mochi.

This is how the duck was served by the master chef, each piece perfectly sliced and layered. It is cooked in a such a way that there is no extra grease (they called it “Superlean” actually, i think it’s a lie) but the skin of the duck is glistening like it is glazed with honey, purely from the natural fat and oil of the duck. The condiments served below are (clockwise from top): Cucumber and pink radish, sweet sauce and scallion, crystal sugar and garlic puree, olive paste and pickled ginger.

The waiter gave us an introduction to how this is to be eaten traditionally. You eat the duck skin first, by dipping it in sugar. It tastes amazing – cripsy with a moist juicy centre, it is fat but there is no excess oil. Then you place the rest of the meat on your pancake. You either use a mixture of sweet sauce and scallions (you don’t use the cucumber or radish when you have it with the dark sauce), or you wrap it with a thin layer of garlic puree (“it is important to spread it very thin, evenly across the pancake so it isn’t too overpowering or spicy” she teaches us), and garnish with cucumber and radish. In between each flavour, the chinese olive and the pickled ginger serves as a palatte cleanser. And we all learnt how to assemble our pancakes using chopsticks only – without touching anything with our hands until eating.

Another amazing highlight – Braised Black Tip Shark’s Fin with Saffron Sauce

The signature dish. At a whooping 500+ yuan a bowl (a year’s salary for some people), we shared this delicacy with a few people. The saffron is aromatic and creamy with an amazing golden color, and somewhat French influenced, in my opinion. The sweetness is so delicately balanced against the smooth glassiness of the shark’s fin with a glutinous bite. It is a signature dish that has been award gold medals in the National Cooking Competitions and an amazing spin on the classic Shark Fin’s soup.

This dish is also one of my favorites, not only for the presentation of the two love birds made from bok choy.

It looks like a hard boiled egg, but in fact, the egg white was steamed in the shape of an egg – and inside, is a delectible concoction of braised golden crab roe and crab meat with flavours that explode in your mouth. It would take some skill to create something as special as this!

Drunken Chicken topped with Bamboo Fungus

There is also an amazing choice of vegetarian dishes, each one presented so beautifully.


Top: Lotus root (where each little hole is stuffed with glutinous rice), Iced asparagus (which were the sweetest, freshest without that asparagus smell that some people find offputting)
Bottom: Bolete with Burgundy, Aubergine, and young bamboo shoots

And who can say no to Fois Gras?

One with mushroom sauce, the one on the right was infused with green apple and Haw. (Remember haw flakes as a kid?)

Stuffed tofu on spoons – spicy mince, and pickled vegetables on the bottom (Xue Cai).
 

On the left, Sea Cucumber fried rice – It was delicious. And on the right, Diced fois gras fried rice.

It got to the point where I was so full, I could only try two bites of each flavour of fried rice. I didn’t even try the Matsutake fried rice.

And finally, the complimentry dessert included chilled Perssimon puree in I think an almond milk…

If you ever visit Beijing, I highly recommend this place! Oh, and the Olympics were great too… I burnt all my calories walking in the Olympic park – there was hardly any transport available in and out of the games. You think you’re really close to the Bird’s Nest because you can see it…. but that was another 30 mins away!

I always thought I was crazy for chefs (being a bit of a chef groupie), that was, until I went to Gordon’s show. My lord are the middle aged ladies crazy for the guy! Gordon fits extremely well in a live audience setting. His crude and offending humour on other chefs like Matt Moran “he’s lost a hat and he’s got no hair” or Jamie Oliver whom he conveniently calls a “twat” proves to be an entertaining show.

He demonstrates with ease three dishes we can replicate at home: Butter bean and chorizo soup, Pan fried lamb with green bean and parmesean salad and for dessert, a Pain Perdue with ricotta and raspberries. Many prizes were given away, almost like the set of an Oprah show, except it’s a lot less generous.

His main cooking tips were:
- Always cook the meat when it is at room temperature
- Seal the sides of your meat properly by tilting your pan and letting the oil cook the edges in a ‘puddle’
- Never slice meat straight after cooking, always rest it for at least five minutes
- Add leftover meat to your soup (such as shredded chicken) and place in the fridge overnight to give it better flavour the next day

Poke poke poke

The “wagaya” Chef’s Salad

Mentaiko Spaghetti – nowhere near as good as Blue Marlin in LA, unfortunately…

Chicken Katsu

Agedashi Mochi – which I loved!

Grilled Salmon Wing

So this is the Salom Roulette – which is a great gimmick: There are 6 pieces of sushi, and only one of them is ‘booby-trapped” with a VERY LARGE amount of wasabi. Nervous laughs all around.

And of course, the fiery piece ends up in my mouth. Tear gas.

Dessert plates: The Mochi ice cream (bottom left) was to die for!

They have private rooms available too!

The Yuzu Shoju recommendation from Yas was delicious!

The steaks were all cooked to each person’s specification, as there were no complaints from anyone. There were Wagyu options (both marble score 7 and marble score 9), but I honestly have tired myself from eating wagyu – it’s great once in a while, but just really not very healthy for the heart to consume an excessive amount of fat. For dessert, I really enjoyed the ‘Five textures of Mandarin’ from the crispy pastry shell, to the ice cream, to the jelly, the coulis, and the syrupped segments with sweet fragrant citrus undertones.

Strip loin on the bone, dry aged, grain fed, 500g, with horseradish cream $46

Sides: “mac & cheese”, creamed spinach, shoe string fires $6

Berry mascarpone trifle, redcurrant jelly $18

Five textures of mandarin $18

Valrhona chocolate raspberry delice, chocolate sorbet $18

And the table next to us, Justin Hemmes himself - if it’s good enough for him for a Wednesday afternoon, it’s probably good enough for us. Thank you, company expense account!

A tip: Row 80 on the upper deck on the new A380 – so much leg room I couldn’t even kick my seat pocket!

Roja @ The Wine Company Dempsey – a chain of wine bars owned by my friend whom I was staying with (so I went to ALL of them)

Chicken Rice @ Chatterbox Cafe, Mandarin Hotel

TCC - Rosewater Latte and Banana Curry Salmon (I ordered it because it was the weirdest thing I could find)

Bakerzin

Dessert Overload!

Tekong Seafood Restaurant near Changi – Shark’s Head dish (right) was amazing and not always available

Bakuteh!!!
 

Killiney Kopitiam

Mee Siam, Coconut butter toast, Chendol

Old Chang Kee (I was giggling at “K8″)

Partners in Gluttony – and my food coma face

“I can’t possibly eat anymore!” (and so I continued…)

So… I think I’m going to be blogging about new diet recipes again for the next few weeks..!

Robuchon a Galera at Hotel Lisboa – Joel Robuchon being one of my favorite chefs… this was one of the places I couldn’t wait to try! A lot of friends have commented that this restaurant is much better than its Hong Kong counterpart (which is probably over-trendy with less focus on the food).

Warm egg cocotte with spinach, truffle and parsley toast, Chicken soup jelly with Fois Gras, Onion tartin with Sliced black truffle

Papilotte of silver cod with black truffle and baby artichoke and leek - cooked to perfection in a paper bag, cream sauce dressed at the table, and the flesh of the fish just falls to the touch of the fork. mmmm

The mille feuille (my favorite dessert of all time) with very fresh pastry and vanilla cream, the floating island with chestnut ice cream

The Peninsula Spa

“Exclusive poolside lunch featuring Naturally Peninsula light and healthy cuisine” – Poached salmon in vegetable broth

H One @ IFC

Steamed White Asparagus, Italian “Sunny Side Up” Egg, Shaved Parmesan, White Truffle Oil

Agnes b – Le pain grille

High tea set – very cute, relaxing environment perfect for a girly chat over a hot cup. I went with my grandmother!

Da Domenico -10 Hysan Ave, 10-12, G/F Sunning Plaza, Causeway Bay

Their famous Lobster linguini – to die for. A cute trattoria styled Italian restaurant I visited with my boss. I snapped this photo during his smoke break!