Posted August 25th, 2010 in Food | No Comments »
I got up very early today. 4 am! I didn’t have any work to do this morning, but couldn’t go back to sleep after waking up for the toilet :p I normally have no problem going back to sleep even if I wake up during the night, but this morning I felt so hungry and couldn’t sleep!
What did I eat last night…? Roasted veggies and chicken. I thought I ate a lot, but I guess my digestion system works too good. I got up the bed and started preparing early breakfast.
I had some left over in the fridge, but I decided to cook udon noodle soup. My favorite is to add egg to the soup (tamago-toji udon), but this time I just made a simple one.
With wakame seaweed, sprig onion (and naruto – fish cake). There are many kinds of udon soup in Japan, and I guess I can call this “su-udon 素うどん” = which means “simple udon”. Su-udon normally indicates udon noodle with nothing but soup and spring onion (or sometimes just soup).
Su-Udon (image from wiki)
Making the soup by yourself is very easy! Besides, you won’t need to prepare many things when making su-udon.
<Udon Soup> serves 1
- 1.5cup water
- 1 handful bonito flakes (about 10g)
- 1 tbs mirin
- 1 tbs soy sauce
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- Place water and bonito flakes in a small sauce pan. Bring to the gentle simmer, and turn down the heat to low. Simmer for about 5 minutes.
- Drain the bonito flake and keep the soup. Return the soup to the pan, and add mirin and soy sauce. Bring to the gentle simmer and simmer for 5 minutes.
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Pour the soup over cooked udon noodle. Enjoy with your favorite condiments!
By the way, the bonito flakes you used to make the soup: normally you just throw away, but you can make
Tsukudani (
wiki) with it. Mix with sake, sugar and soy sauce (1 tsp each) and stir-fry until the liquid is gone！
Posted August 24th, 2010 in Japan | No Comments »
I had a very relaxing morning today.
It was just a normal day – get up early and get ready for work-, but somehow I felt so relaxed on the way to the office. Maybe it’s because of the song my husband was listening to from his iPod, or the cloudy weather with white sky; as if it was just about to rain.
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To tell the truth, I was kind of having struggling 6 months since the beginning of this year. I knew the reason, but I didn’t know what to do. But, one day, I realised – what is the most important thing in my life? It’s certainly not the money. SInce I was little, I’ve always wanted to do something which I liked, I wanted to get a job which I enjoy – not for money. I actually wanted to go to Africa by myself to live with wildlife by looking after them!
I think I was losing myself while this 6 months. Now, I’m so glad that I’m Ume again. I always loved my unique and weird personality.
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I read many books during this 6 months, and I leant that the most important thing to lead a happy life is “be a happy person”. If you are not happy, you can’t be nice to others. You won’t even have a minutes to worry and care about people. But, when you are happy, you can do all of them. You’ll have a big heart and can share it with others.
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I am now thankful that all my family is fine and healthy. That’s all the matters, I don’t really care about other stuff!
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Oh, last weekend I talked to my mum, dad and bro on skype. We’re all not phone-type of people and couldn’t talk too long, but it was really nice that we did. My mum lives bit far away from my house and she doesn’t usually come to the house, so it’s great that I could talk to three of them at the same time. I wish I was there!
© Librairie Seizan of KYOTO
This time of the year in Japan is Obon : a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one’s ancestors. They wanted to go to the Jizo-bon festival – a festival for children held in especially Western Japan – near my house, but it’s customary to have the Jizo-bon on both August 23 and 24 to coincide with the Jizo Bosatsu fair. This year, 23 and 24 are Monday and Tuesday, so they couldn’t. On Sunday they went to the place anyway, but the festival wasn’t started yet, and mum couldn’t go to the alter of many jizo statues to light the candles. Mum asked the monks to light three candles for bro, me and one more once the festival starts.
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I love the festival.. When I was little, I didn’t know much of the meaning of the festival – just enjoying the stall food such as takoyaki, snow cones, Hiroshima-yaki and crapes. It’s a long way to the jizo alter, and on the way there’re many stalls selling food and toys, and also people enjoying karaoke on the stage. We all head to the alter, and inside we light on the candle and come out, then return back the way we came.
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I hope I can be there next year. I’m really starting to think that I should be flying to Japan during summer next time.
Posted August 23rd, 2010 in Perth WA | No Comments »
On Sunday my friend came over for Oden and Chirashi-zushi party! I started simmering the tofu, konnyaku, daikon radish and boiled eggs on Thursday night so that they would absorb the soup and flavor very good. On Saturday I added some nerimono (all sorts of fish-cakes) to finish-up. It looked so yummy!
I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures! I must had been so busy eating and chatting… (>0<) So here is the image photo from Google…
(Mine was not this beautiful!)
One of the friend couldn’t join the oden party as she has been suffering from unfortunate food poisoning since last week.
I remember my first and last food poisoning was in Jakarta… It was terrible! I was on holiday, but couldn’t even get up from the bed. The whole body was cold/sweating/shaking/fever/vomiting/etc. I just wanted to lie down on the bed, I couldn’t even stand the gentle air wave from the air conditioner.
I hope she gets better!
Posted August 22nd, 2010 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »
Yesterday we headed to a burger bar in Victoria Park, V Burger Bar. I was soooo hungry!
Continuing from my previous post about burger cafes in Perth, this is the forth shop that I visited which specialises in burgers. The shop is right next to the Bintang Cafe.
I ordered Chickcorian Burger which consists of chicken patty with chopped coriander, gourmet lettuce, red onion and lime sweet chilli mayonnaise. My husband ordered Classic V Burger which consists of prime beef patty, gourmet lettuce, red onion, V relish and aioli.
The bread was Turkish style, and the burger didn’t come with chips or salad. The price is pretty reasonable.
Chickcorian Burger was delicious – the tangy sweet chilli mayo was well-matched with the chicken patty. I couldn’t taste much of coriander in the patty though.
The Classic V Burger was good. The amount of the beef patty was just right, and the aioli and relish were great for the burger.
If I compare with other burger shops I’ve been to, the beef burger at Gourmet on Wray was the best so far. The beef patty was divine – smooth, tasty, and I could enjoy the genuine delicious “beef”. A beef burger at Jus Burger was hard to describe, as there was too much sauce and the sauce was overwhelming the taste of the patty, so I have to exclude it from the comparison.
V Burger Bar website
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Email: me@umeboss.com
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