Temaki Sushi

Posted May 31st, 2009 in Food | No Comments »

The other day I invited friends to enjoy temaki-sushi (hand-rolled sushi). Temaki sushi is popular to eat at home because of its easy preparation. You prepare the materials, and just let people make/eat it themselves.

What type of food to prepare is really up to you. You can add any vegetables you like, or try on sushi.

In my case, I cut carrots and cucumber into jullienne, and arranged lettuce, snowpea sprouts, avocado on a plate. For meat, I cooked chicken thigh (teriyaki style) and sliced. I also prepared tuna (mix tinned tuna with Japanese mayonnaise, drops of soy sauce and wasabi paste). Sliced Unagi (roasted eel) and fresh tuna too.

Cook short grain rice, and season with Sushi Su (sushi vinegar) while the rice is hot. Try not to mix the rice too much, we don’t want the rice to be very sticky and like paste. Let it cool.

Cut Nori Sheet (seaweed sheet) into 1/4, arrange on a plate.

Now, you arrange all the plates on a dining table, and let the party begin.


Fragrant Ginger Rice with Pan-fried Chicken

Posted May 28th, 2009 in Food | 2 Comments »

Asian flavored chicken with fragrant rice recipe.

The scent of ginger really whets an appetite.  Enjoy with an extra sweet chili sauce on the side.

  • 2 cups rice
  • 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
  • 5g fresh ginger
  • 300g chicken breast (skin on)
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tbs sake (cooking wine)
  • 3 tbs soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • bok choy or Chinese cabbage, spring onion
  • sweet chili sauce, if required
(for two)
  1. Heat oil in a frying pan.  Saute crushed garlic briefly, and place chicken in the pan, skin side down.  Grill it until the skin is golden.  Turn it over and cook through over low heat.  (you may place a lid)
  2. Wash rice and put in a rice cooker.  Pour chicken stock and sliced ginger.  Level the surface, and cook.
  3. Mix sake, soy sauce and sesame oil together.
  4. Steam bok choy or Chinese cabbage.  Chop spring onion.
  5. Place sliced chicken on a plate and pour the sauce 3.  Serve with bok choy / cabbage and top with spring onion.  Enjoy with sweet chili sauce if you like.

Deep-fried Tofu in Dashi Soup (Agedashi Tofu)

Posted May 27th, 2009 in Food | No Comments »

In Perth it’s getting really cold, especially at night time.  I need a heater and blanket every night…

Why not warm up with this Japanese tofu dish?  Enjoy while tofu is hot and crispy ♪

<Agedashi Tofu>

  • Tofu
  • corn flour
  • 1/2 tsp dashi powder
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tbs sake (or white wine)
  • 2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 tsp grated ginger
  1. Heat up water and add dashi powder.  Turn down the heat, and add sake and soy sauce.  Keep warm.
  2. Cut tofu into about 5cm cubes.  Coat with corn flour and shake off any excess flour.  Deep fry until nicely crispy.
  3. Immerse the tofu into the sauce and eat immediately.

Bagel with Poached egg and Crispy Bacon

Posted May 26th, 2009 in Food | 10 Comments »

Toasted bagel is chewy and crusty.  It’s just how I like it ♪

<Bagel with Egg + Bacon>

  • 1 bagel
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbs vinegar
  • 1 strip bacon
  • 1/2 tsp pesto
  • 1/2 tsp mayonnaise
  
  1. Cook bacon over medium-low heat till crispy. (no oil in the pan!)
  2. Fill up a small sauce pan with water, and heat up until small bubbles come out from the bottom of the pan.  Add 1 tsp of vinegar or lemon juice.  Carefully break the egg into the water.  (you can break egg into a small bowl or plate first, and then slide it into the water)  Over low heat, simmer until the white is cooked yet the yolk is still soft.  (as you like it)
  3. Slice bagel and toast.  Mix pesto and mayonnaise, and spread onto the bagel.
  4. Drain egg and arrange on the bagel, top with crispy bacon and freshly cracked black pepper.
   

Birthday Cake

Posted May 25th, 2009 in Food | 4 Comments »

I like making cakes.  At my house in Japan we didn’t have proper oven, but I was using rice cooker to bake sponge every time.  Japanese rice cooker sure is a multi-skilled machine!

One of my favorite cake is strawberry short cake.  This cake is very standard yet popular in Japan.  That is why, when my friend asked me last week to make a cake for his daughter’s birthday party, I straightaway decided to make a cake similar to the strawberry short cake. 🙂 

Unfortunately strawberries are out of season and very expensive, so I just used one packet and add other fruits.  Because there’re going to be about 25 kids in the party, I made the cake pretty big.  Lightly baked vanilla sponge cake layered with fresh cream and fruits inside.  I decorated the top with cream and fruits, and “happy birthday” message.  The letters on message doesn’t look nice, I think I made the hole little too big for the piping bag with dark chocolate,  that’s why it was bit difficult to squeeze into letters when I was piping. :p

 Anyway, they were happy with this cake, so I’m glad.


Fried Noodle Wrapped in Omelet (Omu-soba)

Posted May 24th, 2009 in Food | No Comments »

Similar to omu-rice, omu-soba is a dish which yakisoba (stir-fried noodle) is wrapped in thinly cooked omelet.  This is not really yo-shoku (Japanese Style Western Food) nor Japanese food.  Someone made up this dish like “hey, if you can wrap up rice with omelet, why don’t we do that for yakisoba too?”

Yaki-soba is Japanese style stir-fried egg noodle (thin).  It’s usually cooked with thinly sliced pork, onion, carrot and cabbage, and topped with ao-nori and bonito flake, then served with red pickled ginger.  We use yakisoba sauce which you can easily buy from supermarket in Japan.  The sauce is quite exensive in Asian grocery shops in Perth, so I normally season the noodle by myself.

< Yaki-soba > for one

  • 1 portion of yakisoba noodle (or any thin egg noodle)
  • onion, carrot, cabbage, beanshoots, some meat or seafood (up to you)
  • 2 tsp Worcester sauce
  • 1 tsp tomato sauce
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp oyster sauce
  • salt & pepper
  • tomato sauce + Japanese mayonnaise + ao-nori to garnish

  1. Heat 1 tbs of oil in a frying pan.  If you are using thinly sliced pork, cook the meat first.  If you are using some other meat/seafood, saute sliced onion and carrot, then add meat/seafood.  Season with salt&pepper.
  2. Add roughly chopped cabbage.  Stir-fry for about 1 min, and add yakisoba noodle.  Try to loosen up the noodle with chopsticks, and drop 1~2 tsp water.  Stir, turn down the heat and cover with lid.
  3. Once the water is absorbed into noodle, take off the lid and turn the heat to medium.  Pour the sauce and stir-fry.  Season if required, and set aside.
  4. In another frying pan, cook thin omelet.  Turn off the heat.
  5. Place yakisoba noodle onto the omelet.  Place a plate on the top of frying pan (the serving side down), and flip it around.
  6. Curl the edge of omelet in and completely wrap up yakisoba.  Drizzle mayo, tomato sauce and sprinkle ao-nori.

Fox Wedding

Posted May 22nd, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests | No Comments »

It’s been raining last couple of days…  Rainy season has came :p

In winter in Perth it rains almost everyday…  We don’t get any snow, but cold weather + rain.  I don’t mind raining days, but I really hate huge snails moving around my house! (><)  Not only my house but everywhere…  I can’t go outside for walking because I know I will definitely step on huge snails on the road…

This morning was raining, but the sun was out.  In Japan we call this weather (sunny and raining at the same time) “Fox Wedding”.  The origin for this, I think, is because of a Japanese old tale.  In Japan, foxes and raccoons are depicted as the epitome of deception, able to transform into any shape or form it strategically desires.  There are many tales about foxes/raccoons tricking people in Japan.  So, if it rain while sun is out, it’s obviously strange and people thought “ah, foxes are trying to trick us again!”.

By the way, the weather “snowing and raining at the same time” is called “raccoon’s wedding”.

Fox Wedding Tale (by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford)

Another fox related tales…

The Grateful Foxes

How a Man Was Bewitched and Had His Head Shaved by the foxes

(by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford)

The Fox and the Tanuki

(by Lafcadio Hearn)

Read more Japanese stories


Bamboo

Posted May 21st, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | 2 Comments »

Although I said that dinner wan’t so nice at Banboo restaurant in Willetton, I still liked their salt & chili pepper squid.  It was nicely crispy, and I enjoyed it with pickled chili and vegetables.  In some restaurants (not only Chinese restaurants) texture of squid is like rubber.  I really hate when someone serve such dish at restaurants.  I think they are using frozen cheap squid, and they don’t cook properly.  I know one Chinese restaurant on South Street that sells rubbery seafood clay-pot dish.  I don’t only hate the fact that seafood is like rubber, but also the taste!  I can tell they use MSG…  I really didn’t wanna pay for the dish 🙁

Talking about seafood, I really loved Honey Prawn at Yu (Burswood Entertainment complex).  The prawn was reasonably big, and juicy.


Mask!

Posted May 20th, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests | 2 Comments »

In Japan you get to see lots of people wearing masks everywhere, such as in a train, supermarkets and on the street.  My friend who visited Japan last spring told me that he was kind of scared when he saw many people crossing the road with white masks…  To imagine the scene, yes it’s scary actually :p  

The big reason for that is because many people in Japan have hay fever and try to avoid the pollen as much as they can by wearing masks.  For other, they just have cold or want to avoid inhaling some dust…

Now, swine flu is getting serious around Osaka area, and some of the schools around Kansai are closed.  I’m from Shiga, and I was telling my family “don’t go to Osaka, Kyoto area!” but seems that there’s one person who is suffering from swine flu in Shiga (Otsu) already!  

Now, because of the flu, masks are selling like hot cakes.  Lots of shops are out of stock…  even amazon.jp sold out masks!  Mask has the biggest demand in Japan right now!

I don’t usually wear mask even in Japan (because I don’t have hay fever), but if I go back to Japan right now I’ll be wearing mask everyday everywhere!


Cheesy Toast with Condensed Milk

Posted May 18th, 2009 in Food | No Comments »

The combination of condensed milk and cheese was actually little shocking to me at first.  To me, toasted bread with cheese is supposed to be savory, not sweet.  I was told this recipe from my hubby.  He said this dish is very common in Indonesia…  I tried it anyway, and it tasted actually good!  Nice snack when you feel like some sweet stuff.

To make this is very easy…

<peanut butter version>

  1. Toast 2 slices of bread
  2. Spread peanut butter on one slice, and sandwich.
  3. Top with grated tasty cheese, and drizzle condensed milk over.  Melt the cheese in oven toaster or microwave.
  
<banana version>
  1. Toast 1 slice of bread.
  2. Top with grated tasty cheese.  Melt the cheese in oven toaster or  microwave.
  3. Arrange sliced banana on the top, and drizzle condensed milk over.
   
 Enjoy while it’s hot.
In Indonesia there’s a food called “Martabak“.  This Martabak can be both sweet and savory.  I love “Cheese and Condensed Milk Martabak”, and “Chocolate Martabak”.  At Martabak stalls in Indonesia we can see how they make Martabak, and I know how much butter is used in there….  So I can’t eat lots of them even though they taste really nice!

Simmered Tofu Broth

Posted May 17th, 2009 in Food | 2 Comments »

After continuous eating-out at Chinese restaurants, a steak house and a smorgasbord restaurant, I really really needed to rest my stomach with some hearty Japanese food.  In traditional Japanese cuisine we don’t use much oil, fat and meat.  That’s why Japanese food’s known as healthy, good diet among the world.

Some people think they are too bland and plain.  Even some Japanese people (especially men) prefer Western style food such as pizza, burgers and chips to the traditional Japanese food.  Nowadays, however, Japanese diet has been changed and we don’t get to see traditional Japanese food at the dinning table anymore.  We eat more Youshoku – Japanized Western dish everyday.  Some of the dish you know, such as Japanese curry, omu-rice, gyoza are not traditional Japanese food.  In Japan, gyoza, fried rice, ramen and char siu pows etc are considered as Chinese food, not Japanese food.  In Perth there are some Japanrese restaurants which sell sushi and dim sums together.  For me, the combination is really weird!  Dim sums are not supposed to be Japanese :p

Japanese cuisine doesn’t use garlic either.  They are really natural, plain flavor.  And, I love the bland food.  🙂

Tonight I cooked a broth with Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushroom and tofu.  I wanted to add enoki and shimeji mushroom but they are really expensive in Perth…  I love mushroom!

< Tofu and Shiitake Mushroom Broth >

  • 2 cups water
  • 1 tsp dashi powder (powdered fish stock)
  • 2 shiitake mushroom
  • 80g tofu
  • 1~2 leaves Chinese cabbage
  • 1 tbs sake
  • 1~2 tsp soy sauce
  • salt
  1. Bring the water to boil.  Add dashi powder and stir.  Add sake, soy sauce and salt.
  2. Place cut tofu, Chinese cabbage and mushroom to the pan.  Simmer for 10~15 minutes.
  3. Sprinkle ichimi-togarashi (one spiced chilli powder) if you like.

If the soup is really bland, you can add more soy sauce or salt. Or, you can use ponzu as dipping sauce.  Ponzu is commonly used for Japanese steamboard dish and simmered broth.


Japanese TV Commercial

Posted May 15th, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests | No Comments »

As some people know, Japanese tv shows are quite different from other countries’.  There are many comedy shows everyday, and the way they produce the shows is very comical (and sometimes I feel that’s too much :p)

Japanese joke is the most funniest, yet sometimes little cruel (that’s what I think).  You know, in Japanese comedy shows, comedians have to use their body to get the laugh (by getting hit, punched, etc) … :p  And I sometimes think that it’s too much.  Especially nowadays…. some of the jokes are not funny at all!

… anyway, when my hubby first visited Japan, he seemed to enjoy Japanese tv shows even though he doesn’t understand any words.  He said that Japanese tv shows, even tv commercials, are very funny.

Here are some of the funny/over reacting tv commercials…

Kurakon TV commercial

Fanta Drinks TV commercial

Kincho TV commercial

UFO Noodle TV commercial

Sapporo Beer TV commercial

Nisshin Cup Noodle TV commercial

…..


Tony Roma’s

Posted May 14th, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | 4 Comments »

This American franchise restaurant – Tony Roma\’s was first started in North Miami in 1972.  It now has more than 200 restaurants in 27 countries, and there are 2 Tony Roma’s in Australia; one in Sydney and one in Perth.

I like the atmosphere of this restaurant.  This restaurant is famous for its Ribs, Seafood and Steaks, and I had a family dinner there tonight.

I ordered Rib Combo – BBQ chicken and half slab of pork ribs with a choice of two side dishes.  The meat was so tender that I didn’t even need to use my knife.

Aunt had Bayou Chicken Salad – spicy red hot BBQ chicken breast on greens, tomatoes, cheese and bacon.  It looked really yummy!  I will try this on my next visit… 🙂

This rib dish is St. Louis Sampler; which comes in 4 sauces – Original, Carolina Honey, Red Hats and Blue Ridge Smokies.  Yes you can enjoy four different flavors in one dish.

We didn’t have any entree this time, but Onion Loaf and Potato Skins are really nice.

They also do take-away!


Saigon

Posted May 13th, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »

Located at the centre of Northbridge, I’m sure that lots of people know this restaurant.  Saigon is a city in Vietnam, and as this name indicates this restaurant serves Vietnamese/Chinese food.

I was still learning English at TAFE (Technical and Further Education institute) when I first tried this place. (6 years ago!)  My classmate (who had been in Perth for few years) recommended a dish called “Saigon chicken rice” to me, and since then I order this dish every time I go to this restaurant, even now.

Besides the taste, the price was also another big factor why I kept eating this dish.  Back then it was just $4.50!  Now, however, it’s about $7? $8?  I’m not sure…  Price’s been gone up.

I usually order fresh spring rolls as entree.  I love the sauce!  shredded carrot and crushed peanuts…

Then, Saigon Chicken Rice…

The sauce is kind of sweet, and you can eat lots and lots of rice with just this sauce.  (which is not a good thing if considering the calorie, actually :p)  The chicken is roasted or fried first, so it’s crispy outside.   This one dish really fill me up, I think men will like this dish.


Ramune drinks

Posted May 12th, 2009 in Food, Perth WA, Ume's Interests | 3 Comments »

Ramune is a carbonated soft drink which you can find in Japan. Ramune is one of the symbols of summer in Japan and you’ll see this drink during warm festival days and nights.

Ramune’s bottle is known for its very distinctive design: they are made of glass and sealed with a marble.  The marble is held on the narrowest part of the bottle to keep pressure of the carbon in the drink. To open the bottle, a device to push the marble inward is provided with the bottle. The marble is pushed inside the neck of the bottle where it rattles around while drinking.

The flavor of Ramune I know is sweet, it’s almost like sprite.  It’s transparent but it looks like it’s blue color because of the blue colored bottle.  That’s the original Ramune which I used to drink when I was little.

…. now, I found these!

Left: Curry Flavored Ramune

Middle: Wasabi Flavored Ramune

Right: Almond Jelly Flavored Ramune

They are genuinely made in Japan, by the way.

… Would you drink them?  I mean, curry flavored soda drinks?!  Wasabi?  … Almond Jelly may be fine, but other two are not really tempting.

I’m curious though, how it tastes like…

In Perth they are available in some places…  if you wanna try those.


Yum Cha

Posted May 11th, 2009 in Food | No Comments »

Do you like Dim Sum?  In Perth you can get them pretty cheap as compared as in Japan.

Which Dim Sum dish do you like?  My favorites are…

Fried Squid (everyone’s favorite!), Steamed Prawn Dumplings, Prawn in Rice Flour Rolls, Chicken Feet, GInger Tripe, and mango pudding.

Those dishes are what I order every time I go out for yam cha.  I know some people don’t like chicken feet, tripe etc, but I love those offal (if it’s cooked nicely!)

Yes, looks little gross… :p

By the way do you know why this dining experience (eating small servings of different foods) is called “Yam Cha”?  Yam Cha in Chinese character (飲茶) means “drinking tea”, which means that you need to drink lots of tea while having those food as the foods are usually oily and high in fat.  Drinking Chinese tea helps digesting those oily food.  That’s why you need to order Chinese tea at Yam Cha restaurants!


Easy Oven Roasted Spare Ribs

Posted May 10th, 2009 in Food | 2 Comments »

Very easy!  Just marinate and cook in the oven.  You won’t even need to marinate meat for hours.

< Oven Roasted Spare Ribs >

  • 7~9 spare ribs
  • 1 tbs Worcester sauce
  • 2 tbs tomato sauce
  • 3 tbs soy sauce
  • 3 tbs marmalade jam
  • 1 tbs white wine or sake
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 2 tsp grated garlic

– Heat up oven to 200

  1. Season ribs with salt and pepper.  Mix all the ingredients in a heat-proof bowl.  Marinate ribs in the sauce and glad wrap, then heat up in the microwave for about 5 minutes.
  2. Place ribs on an oven tray with sauce.  Cook for about 30minuts or until meat is cooked.

* If the meat starts to burn on surface, cover with aluminum foil and let it cook through.


Mother’s Day

Posted May 9th, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests | No Comments »

Tomorrow is mother’s day!  What’s your plan?

There’re so many things you can get for your mam from shopping centre, florist, book shops etc…  I got this massage thing for mother_in_law (to be).  I didn’t have any other ideas what to get for her.. :p

My mam is in Japan, so it’s not easy to organize something for her from here 🙁  I know my mam wouldn’t care, but I thought it’d be nice if I do something..

I usually buy something online and send it to mam’s house.  This time, I chose to send flower to her 🙂

This shop does FREE delivery on Mother’s day.  I hope she’ll like it!

By the way the name of this shop is “Flower for Mother’s Day”.  This means the shop only gets customers on this day?  I wonder how they can get profit…..  In Perth I see “Christmas shop” which sells only Christmas goods.  I understand this business as Christmas is a big day of the year.

…. I think I should have written this post in Japanese as this flower shop is in Japan :p

…って事で、海外に住んでる日本人の方、日本に居るお母さんにお花を送ってみませんか?


Iced Coffee

Posted May 7th, 2009 in Food, Japan | No Comments »

If you are familier with iced coffee with ice cream and fresh cream, you will be surprised when you see Japanese iced coffee.  In Japan iced coffee is just iced black coffee.  It usually comes with syrup and cold milk on side, but coffee itself is not sweet.

I like black coffee and usually don’t put any sugar or milk.  In summer I drink iced coffee (black), and in winter I drink hot coffee (black).  You can easily get iced/hot coffees (and other beverages) from vending machines and convenience stores 24/7.

Since I came to Perth, however, I started adding milk and sweetener to my coffee.  I don’t know why I like sweet coffee now.  Age?…  but the strange thing is that I only drink black coffee whilst in Japan still now.  While I’m in Perth I drink sweet coffee; iced coffee, affogato etc.

By the way, coffee jelly is one of my favorite dessert in Japan.  It’s just black coffee jelly, normally served with cream syrup.  Sometimes with whipped fresh cream.

Very simple, but the bitterness of coffee and sweetness of syrup really matches. Great for summer!

And you can get that from convenience stores too!


Singapore Hawker Chinese Food

Posted May 6th, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | 2 Comments »

Collins Plaza is a place where few restaurants are gathered and I sometimes go there for lunch and dinner.  There is one Japanese restaurant “Yuki Japanese”, and few Chinese restaurants.  Korean grocery shop “Hi Mart” is there too.  I see Korean people hanging around this area often.

I’ve went to Yuki few times and their food is nice.  The owner is not a Japanese but the interior is well presented and staff are friendly.  One of the Chinese place at this Collins Plaza is Bamboo (I think there is Bamboo restaurant in Northbridge or somewhere too), and their lunch menu was delicious!  I had curry laksa and other dishes looked very nice too. I was little disappointed when I went to this place for dinner though.  The dishes were not as nice as lunch menu 🙁  I don’t know why: different chefs, maybe.  Especially, crispy chicken.  The sauce was too buttery and it was not to my taste :p

The another Chinese place I’ve been to is Singapore Hawkers Chinese food.  Even though this place is small as compared with Bamboo, their food was very nice.  For lunch I had Nasi Lemak, and the price was cheap too.

The other day I tried this place for dinner.  We ordered stir-fried Kan Kun (Chinese vegetable) with sambal, fried duck with plam sauce, sizzling seafood combination plate, and sambal squid.

Personally, I thought they put  little too much vegetables on each plate; for example, Sambal Squid dish got tomato, carrot, onion, and okura.  I think they don’t need to put any veggies as this dish is called “Sambal Squid”, but you know how much I love vegetables.  I really enjoyed it.

Sizzling seafood plate (with cauliflower, capsicum and onion) was little different from what I expected, but my family was enjoying it very much.

Four dishes and steamed rice, it was less than 60 dollars!  Really cheap.  No wonder they’re very busy and many people kept coming for take away.


Bijin Tokei

Posted May 5th, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests | No Comments »

Bijin Tokei (English) means “beautiful clock” in Japanese.  Someone started this website where you can see beautiful Japanese girls holding a black board with time, and it changes every minute.  That means, one girl is holding “3:15: board, and next minute another girl is hodling “3:16” board.

Some people (especially guys, of course!) are crazy about this and keep checking girls evey minute!

You can set this bijin tokei on the sidebar of your site, email page etc, (my husband actually set this on my gmail so I have to look at Japanese girls every minute :p)


Chin’s Noodle House

Posted May 4th, 2009 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »

This Chinese restaurant in Leeming is one of the places I often go to for dinner.  They are usually fully booked on weekends so we have to make booking few days in advance.  

Despite the busyness their service is good.  Food is served quickly and wait staff often come to table to check if everything is ok.

We usually get san choi bao or Peking duck for entree, and few mains.  Some of their dish is great, and some are ok.  This time we ordered roast meat combination (large size – choice of three meat/octopus), crispy beef and seafood claypot with beancurd.  

Again, the photo is not nice… 🙁

I love seafood claypot dish.  I personally prefer it with Japanese tofu, but this dish was also delicious.  This crispy beef, the meat is deep-fried and tossed through a sweet sauce – you can eat rice with just the sauce!

We got roasted duck, bbq pork and octopus for roast combination.  They’re delicious.

If you like seafood I recommend crab cooked with chili sauce Singapore style.  You’ll need to wash you hands after eating this dish…  but very nice!  Or, why not try Lobster sashimi??  I haven’t tried this dish yet, but I’m curious how Chinese sashimi would look like.


Early Morning…

Posted May 2nd, 2009 in Food, Ume's Interests | No Comments »

Today I woke up very early. (4am!)  I went to bed early last night, so I think that’s the reason…

I’ve been having thought about my family, my future etc lately.  It’s not about serious matters though, I just like to think and daydream about things.  I got tickets to Japan and am so excited to go home in September, but at the same time I’m thinking “can I not come back to Perth and live in Japan?”  Every time I fly home, I can only stay there for up to 2 weeks 🙁  I know I can’t do anything about it because it’s my company’s policy: “we can only take annual leaves up to 10 days at a time”.  I don’t wanna risk losing my job (yet), but for me, there is no enough time to spend with my family on my every homecoming.

I came to Perth in 2003 as a student.  I was going to study English for just 1 year here, and move to some other city or country to study something else.  But things changed and I decided to stay in Perth.  It was my decision and I definitely don’t regret that,  (Perth is beautiful place to live) but I think my family didn’t expect me staying in Perth for the rest of my life!  They thought I was coming back home after 1 year.  Now, since then, I can only go home once a year for just 2 weeks.  I miss them and I know they miss me too.  I really think that I need to be with my family longer than 2 weeks and talk about stuff, like “what I’m going to do” and “where I’m going to live” etc.  I couldn’t say good-bye to my grandpa when he passed away (I was in Perth) and it really break my heart 🙁

Anyway, I just want to plan things and try to spend more time at home, especially with my grandma 🙂

This morning I went walking around my house.  It was very cold!  I think winter is just around the corner already.  So fast…

I had nice breakfast: plain bagel with cream cheese and freshly brewed coffee!  Since I bought a coffee machine I feel that I drink too much coffee :p  but I love it.


Fresh Spring Rolls

Posted May 1st, 2009 in Food | 2 Comments »

Fresh spring roll is one of my favorite food.  Every time I go to Vietnamese restaurants, I order one plate.

Few years ago in Japan we had a big “Asian food trend”, and many Asian restaurants (like Thai food, Indonesian food, Korean food, etc etc) opened everywhere.  That time was the first time for me to eat fresh spring rolls.  Fresh spring rolls in Japan might be little different from their original flavor, I think.  I don’t remember there’s any herbs (coriander, mint) inside.  I guess Japanese chefs changed the ingredients/recipe to match Japanese people’s taste.

Now, spring rolls can be found anywhere in Japan too.  When I go to Izakaya I always order fresh spring rolls.

One of the reason I like spring rolls is that I can eat lots of fillings with thin skin.  Sometimes I feel like some salad rolls, but bread sometimes really stuff me up.  Then, I just use rice paper instead of bread.

For Vietnamese people, those food I make might seem to be a really weird, I like it.

  1. Soak rice paper in water until it’s soft.
  2. Roll up ham, salad and some mastard (or anything you like)

You can also make unagi rolls;

  1. Soak rice paper in water until it’s soft.
  2. Slice roasted unagi and cucumber.
  3. Roll up unagi, cucumber and ginger in softened rice paper.

Personally I eat them without any sauces, but you can dip in any of your favorite sauce.