Posted July 30th, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | 2 Comments »
The other day I went to Pancakes & Grill in Northbridge. I noticed that this place isn’t getting enough customers as they hope … but I personally like this place. The atmosphere is like a family restaurant in Japan. The only difference is, their high pricing. I guess these prices are normal in Perth. Everything here is over-priced to me :p
My friend and I shared Raspberry+Cheese+Cream Crape. The crape was chewy and I liked it. The raspberry coulis and cheese cream tasted good too.
I believe lots of Japanese people would like this type of place. In Japan there are lots of cafes specializing on only sweets, like “parfait cafe”, “crape house” “dango (skewered, round sticky cakes) cafes” etc, and these places are filled with girls and couples. (apparently this type of sweet places are not for guys :p)
I don’t wonder why this Pancakes & Grill has savory menus (like steaks) along with sweets, even though their main items are sweet pancakes and crapes. Australian people loves meat, so I think they can’t attract many customers with just sweet items…
If their prices were little more reasonable, I would go there very often!
Posted July 28th, 2009 in Food, Ume's Interests | 2 Comments »
I’m so lucky to have a chance to eat many kinds of Asian food. While I was in Japan I didn’t get to eat any Middle Eastern/Eastern/Sough Asian food, except for satay and Nasi Goreng at Izakaya. Of course, they didn’t taste like how they should taste, as they changed the recipe to suit Japanese people’s mouth. Since I came to Perth I’ve had so many food that I’d never eaten.
One of them is Chinese food. There are many Chinese people in Perth so I could try eating more real Chinese food here. In Japan we have lots of Chinese restaurants too, but those food are made for Japanese people, I think. When I asked my friend (Chinese) about some Chinese dish I know, she had no clue what I was talking about. In Japan, typical Chinese dish is “Happo-sai (八宝菜)”, “Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉)”, “Chin-jao-lo-su(青椒肉絲)”, “Ebi Chili (chili prawn), “gyoza (dumplings) etc. For instance, if you order Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉) you will get exact same dish from any restaurants in Japan, it’s always a thinly-sliced pork and cabbage dish stir-fried with some miso paste and other sauces. But, I believe that this Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉) means just “stir-fried meat dish” in Chinese.(according to these Chinese characters) We just call this dish as Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉) and believe this is the name of this dish, but I think it can be any meat dish and with any sauces. If you go to China and order “Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉)” in a restaurant I don’t think I can get the exact Hoi-Ko-lo(回鍋肉) dish as I know. (or maybe they don’t even understand it)
I’d never eaten “san choi bow”, “Japanese tofu”, “Peking ribs” etc before, and now they are my favorites.
Now, about Indonesian food. My mother-in-law (to be in one month) cooks lots of Indonesian/Chinese food for us, and I love them! Some people think Japanese can not eat spicy food, but I do. I always keep fresh chili in my garden!
Every time she fly to Perth, she cooks beef rendang, siew mai (chewy steamed dumplings with peanuts sauce. She always coat boiled eggs, tofu and boiled potatoes with mince meat and then steam. Different from what I knew as siew mai in Japan), gado-gado (mixture of blanched vegetables with peanuts sauce), bak mee (soup noodle), oxtail soup, ayam goreng (deep-fried chicken), sayur asem (sour soup with vegetables), bachang (triangular-shaped glutinous rice dumplings wrapped with bamboo leaves. She stuff mixture of mince meat inside) etc etc …
She also cooks some desserts, I will up-date it later…
I had rendang last night. RIght after I opened the door I knew she was cooking rendang. Smells so nice… Beef is very soft and melts in your mouth, so you don’t even need to chew. She usually accompany rendang with hard boiled eggs.
I’m now waiting for her cooking some siew mai… very yummy. 
Posted July 25th, 2009 in Perth WA | 4 Comments »
Yesterday I received this beautiful gift from my friend in Japan. She used to go to an English school with me in Perth few years ago, and now she lives in Japan, happily married to a Japanese and have a lovely girl. I didn’t want to open the packaging as it was beautifully wrapped with paper and ribbon, but I had to see what’s inside so I opened it… it was a scented white-rose wreath … What a lovely gift! Now it’s in my room and I think I’m gonna use this as something on my wedding day too!
I had a few Japanese friends while I was in English school, and some of them really loved Perth. They said they didn’t want to go back to Japan anymore! Those people happened to be mostly from Tokyo side. I guess they are tired of living in busy stressful life? :p Me, I was looking forward to going back to Japan as soon as I finish my school here (:)) but I ended up staying here. Now most of my friends went back to Japan because they couldn’t get visa successfully. Others worked really hard to get Permanent Resident Visa and some of them are happily living in Perth. All of my friends who I met in Perth and got PR visa are still staying in Perth, not in other cities like Sydney or Gold Coast. They say they like Perth the best.
Today I was out all day. I went to see some of my friends in the morning, then went to see another friends. I hadn’t seen them for so long (probably for one year?) and it was really really nice. After long-time-chatting I went to a shop where I bought my wedding dress to get the final fitting. The dress perfectly fits now, I hope I don’t gain any weight by the day otherwise I can’t wear!
Actually one of my friend works in the shop, and that’s the reason why I got my dress there. And, another friend who is getting married on November this year bought her dress there too, so she and I went to the shop together and did the fitting. After the fan fitting, we all went out for a snack. We went to The Moon Cafe in Northbridge. I was recommended this place by one of my workmate and I wanted to try.
I like the atmosphere and the interior of this cafe. Relaxing and wide.
(Photos are not nice as I was moving around while shooting) ..
We were 4 people but not really hungry, so we all shared one pizza and one pasta. Roasted Eggplant, Cottage Cheese and Pesto Pizza, and Gorgonzola, Pumpkin and Cream Fettuccine. The pizza was delicious, but we all didn’t like the pasta… It might be just because of our choice, I think. Next time I want to try their sweet pizza menu, chocolate or strawberry…
The place would be good for drinking with friends though. You can sit down and have a snack. They open until late so I would come back here again for a drink.
Posted July 25th, 2009 in Food, Perth WA, Ume's Interests | 15 Comments »
As you can tell, Western style mayonnaise and Japanese mayonnaise taste pretty different.
Japanese mayonnaise contains more eggs comparing to Western ones, and it’s thicker in texture and richer in taste. I had a difficulty eating Western style mayonnaise when I just came to Perth because it tasted totally
different from what I knew as mayonnaise and didn’t like it at all. :p
Now I’m used to the taste of Western style mayo, but I keep Japanese mayo in my fridge too just to eat with some Japanese food such as Okonomi-yaki, sushi rolls and kara-age. I can eat Western style mayo in sandwiches and salad, but it’s definitely not for Japanese food.
Western style mayonnaise, (well it’s the standard mayonnaise in the world but I call it Western style) is made with egg yolk, oil, vinegar (or some acid such as lemon juice) and mustard.
According to the package of typical Japanese mayonnaise it contains apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar) and a small amount of MSG…. doesn’t sound good, but I guess that’s the reason why Japanese mayo is so tasty…
Because of the high ratio of eggs contained in Japanese mayonnaise, Australian government prohibits travelers bringing them into Australia. You can find Japanese mayonnaise in Asian grocery shops but they are very expensive. The most popular Japanese mayonnaise brand is QP (kewpie) and it’s the biggest mayonnaise company in Japan. There are few other brands but usually QP is the most expensive one.
Now, Australian government is getting more strict on this product and they don’t even allow some importers to release those Japanese mayo into Australia. Which means, you can’t even buy it from grocery stores. The people who will be in trouble are Japanese restaurant owners. Japanese restaurants need Japanese mayonnaise otherwise some dishes don’t taste like how they supposed to do.
Fortunately some of QP mayonnaise and other brands’ are permitted at this point. Those permitted mayonnaise contains less egg % .
In case all the Japanese mayonnaise get prohibited, Japanese restaurants’ chefs should learn how to make Japanese style mayonnaise?
Posted July 22nd, 2009 in Food, Japan, Ume's Interests | 2 Comments »
I try not to buy and keep lots of snacks/sweets at home otherwise I can’t control myself from eating all the time, but now my house is full of food as in-laws recently got back from Jakarta and brought so many things with them. Sometimes I admire them for bringing so much food into this super strict country (Australia). They just know what food can and can not to be brought into Australia very well.
One of the things they always bring here is Holland Bakery bread. It seems that this Holland Bakery is a pretty big franchise in Indonesia. While I was in Jakarta last time, I went to one of their shops and chose few bread from the show case. The place looked pretty nice. In-laws usually bring 3 boxes of Holland Bakery bread (about 10 bread / each box) here, so we have plenty …
Other things they bring here are salted nuts, cassava chips, some instant noodles, sambal, some sauces, seasoning packets,
Krispy Kreme doughnuts and
Rotiboy bread. Now you can imagine how big the ratio of food is in their luggage … Sometimes 2 large carbon boxes are filled with food and one box is even bigger than their suitcase :p
I concern about my weight… but it’s always nice when someone bring something for you.
By the way..
As my plan for Japan trip is almost done, the biggest concern is yet still not solved.. mobile phone. It’s a problem if we don’t have a mobile in Japan… what if we get lost somewhere? or want to ask my brother to pick us up from a train station? It’s hard to find a public phone in Japan there days…
Even though Japanese mobiles are known as very high-tech and you can do so many things with it such as internet, email, paying goods, using as boarding passes and even body-fat calculators, you can’t use it in other countries.
Anyway, we may have to rent mobiles or buy pre-paid type mobiles there. Or, try to survive without them…
Email: me@umeboss.com
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