Home cooked CNY dinner

Having gone out to dinner with friend's last night, we celebrated our own CNY dinner at home tonight. Irene had started preparing for this a couple of nights earlier and her efforts really paid off.


The highlight of the dinner was a salt baked chicken - it was delicious! Other dishes on the menu, all delicious, include Chinese mushroom with cabbage, prawns and beans on steamed egg whites, and fried turnip cakes.




A really satisfying CNY dinner - thanks to my lovely wife!!!

Bi Won Korean Restaurant

Came here after going to the Arsenal vs Man U soccer match to satisfy Irene's desire for Korean food. Irene's first choice was actually Naru across the road but they were closed so we ended up at her second choice.

The decor of the restaurant was clean and modern; quite comfortable. Food choice was not as extensive as other Korean restaurants that we've been and perhaps it was the dishes we ordered but everything seemed a bit bland and uninteresting.


For starters, we got a seafood pancake. This was actually quite good despite the severe lack of seafood. For mains, we got a tofu stew and a marinated chicken. What came was exactly that. The tofu stew was simply a few pieces of tofu in a stew that consisted of a weak soup and some chilli oil. Though it tasted OK, I was disappointed by the lack of imagination of the stew, not to mention the tiny pot that it came in. The marinated chicken, too, was exactly that - a few pieces of chicken covered in what I guess is the marinate and sitting atop a pile of raw onion.



Though it might well be just our poor choice of dishes, but the completely unimaginative dishes that we got is more than enough to steer us well clear of this place in the future!

New Mayflower, London Chinatown

Our first Chinese New Year dinner in London was spent with Irene's high school friend and her boyfriend at Mayflower Chinese Restaurant in London's Chinatown. The restaurant is really small and given it was Chinese New year, the place was packed. Getting in was a challenge in itself as the people queuing completely blocked the entrance.


After getting in and notifying the waiter of our booking, we still had to wait a while before being shown to our table. The wait was quite excruciating as you were at the mercy of the waiter's disgruntled yelling of "excuse me" for being in the way of their duties.


Our table was directly under the stairs and so part of he roof was slanted, with the low point being so low that the seat there was useless unless a child sat there. Fortunately, the table was a 5 seater so we weren't cramped.


Being CNY, we ordered many dishes from the special CNY menu with names that were apt for the occasion. The dishes we got had chicken, sea cucumber, oysters, mushroom, chicken feet, tofu, a hair like delicay, etc. They all came surprisingly quickly but I reckon most of the dishes were more or less ready and just needed reheating as though the dishes were nicely cooked, they were not overly hot.


Taste wise, I must say the place did a pretty good job, especially given how busy they were! However, Irene still thinks the flavours are stronger at Mr Kong, one of her favourite restaurants.


On the whole, it was a good night with nice food and good company; a great start to the Chinese New Year!

Home made turnip cake for CNY

My wife successfully made some turnip cakes recently. It was her first attempt and seeing all the effort she put into achieve this makes me very proud of her!


Thanks for the yummy turnip cake, my lovely wife!

P.S. also thanks for the beef wellington...been wanting to have that for a while now!!!

Song Que, Shoreditch

Walking along Shoreditch High Street, you'll pass many Vietnamese restaurants. Some are dressed up to look classy, others are just outright shabby, but what they all share in common is the lack of customers. This was what we saw on our way to meet up with Irene's friend for lunch earlier in the year.

Seeing the depressing scene of empty Vietnamese restaurants, we wondered whether the one we were heading to was just as depressing. Fortunately for us (and not one bit surprising given the reviews we read), Song Que was far from depressing. Its simple and bright interior gave it the Vietnamese restaurant feel that we are used to from Sydney. And the large number of diners gave us the reassurance that this place probably does have something to offer!

Shortly after Irene's friend arrived, we made our orders. We each ordered a beef noodle soup of varying varieties, a bean sprout omelette thing to share, and a Vietnamese coffee each. This was the first time we had the bean sprout omelette thing and I must say, it was delicious. The omelette was crunchy and went really well with the equally crunchy bean sprouts. The occasional bits of seafood then served well to add some variety and texture to the taste.


The beef noodle soup, a must have in all Vietnamese restaurants, was quite good. Compared to Cafe East, the only other Vietnamese restaurant that we've been to in London, the beef in the beef noodle soup at Song Que is better but Cafe East wins in terms of the soup base.


Straight after we finished our food, the waiter immediately gave us our bill, which was a hint that they want our table back. This didn't come as much of a surprise as we read about similar experiences in reviews of the restaurant; I guess this is a testament of the restaurant's popularity.

Despite the robbed leisure of being able to sit back and relax a bit after enjoying our meals, which we feel rightfully entitled to given we are paying customers, we still left happy as the food was really satisfying.

Plateau Bar and Grill, Canary Wharf

We came here for dinner the other week after stumbling across it on Top Table and finding a dinner special. The place is quite comfortable with dim lighting and modern furnishings. There are two sections - a proper restaurant and a more casual bar and grill, which was what we opted for.

The top table offer included two courses. I ordered a braised beef cheek for main and a tart of the day for dessert while Irene got the cod for main and rum baba for dessert. I also ordered a red wine and we got a healthy serving of complimentary bread.

Given this was a last minute booking to satisfy our last minute desire to eat out that day, we didn't have much expectation for the food. However, to our surprise, the food was actually very nice! The beef cheek was really well cooked with the meat just peeling off. The cod, too, was very nice.



The tart, though tasted nice, looked a tad ordinary but Irene's rum baba (rum cake) was surprisingly big and good.



On the whole, a great dinner in a comfortable setting with food that did not disappoint.

Landseer British Kitchen, The Bloomsbury Hotel, London

This restaurant is tucked in an awkward location within the hotel and was kind of weird navigating through the hallways and stairs to get there. Once inside, the restaurant was bright and open spaced with the tables quite far apart from each other. As a such, it gave an awkward feeling of trying to be a fine dining restaurant in a hotel but coming across as a casual dining bistro.

Irene found this place after going through the list of restaurants on her Taste card. The reviews were pretty good and the Taste card discount even better - 50% off on food.

The occasion was a dinner catch up with Irene's cousin and her boyfriend from Hong Kong. I was the first to arrive and was given the option of a large round table for four or tables by the wall lounge where they would have to put two of the two people table together. I ended up going for the round table without thinking about the implications of it being next to the wine fridges and hence the constant distraction of the waiters getting wine for diners. Fortunately there weren't many other diners by the time Irene and her cousin and boyfriend arrived and so being next to the wine fridge did not turn out to be much of an issue.

We were initially given the set menu where you have the choice of two courses for just under £20 or three courses for just over £20 but then the waitress realised we were using the Taste card, which does not apply to the set menu, so she changed out menu to the a la carte menu instead. A quick calculation showed that ordering the most expensive items for each course would amount to double the set menu three course price so we figured using the Taste card gave us better value.

I ordered smoked duck for entree, beef and rabbit ballotine with pea mash for main and a lemon tart for dessert. The duck was really nice, well smoked and tasted much like smoked ham. The orange wedges balanced the dish out really well. For mains, I was the odd one out as everyone else ordered the Biilingsgate market mixed seafood grill, however, having shared my main with Irene, I was glad to have ordered the ballotine. The seafood grill mainly consisted of a few pieces of fish and a large prawn. Taste wise it didn't tickle my taste buds. The ballotine on the other hand was delicious! Everything from the ballotine, the sauce, fried quail eggs, to the pea mash were delicious. The pea mash was actually peas mixed with potato mash. The peas gave the mash a slightly different texture, which works well! The only grip I have with the dish is having only two small pieces of the ballotine; they were so nice that I was wishing for more!



The dessert, though nice, was nothing extraordinary. Reading lemon tart, I thought it was going to be a round lemon tart that you typically get at bakeries but I should have known that fancy restaurants like these never make things obvious and instead I got a slice of what was probably a lemon cake!


In addition to the food, we also ordered a bottle of a medium bodied merlot blend. The wine was nice but probably needed a bit of airing.

With the Taste card discount applied, the wine ended up costing almost half the price of the dinner for four! One good thing about Landseer is that they didn't include a service charge in the bill, making it genuinely "discretionary", which is the way it should be!

On the whole, it was a great night, with the food and wine above average. And given we were there to catch up, the lack of ambience was well forgotten shortly after the dinner started.

T.G.I Friday, Westfield Stratford

After a long day at Westfield Stratford joining the crazy crowds for the Boxing Day sales, as well as a movie (Mission Impossible 4), we decided it was too late for dinner at home so we decided to grab a bit before we headed home. Feeling like having a steak, we decided to go to one of the many restaurants on the top floor and settled on T.G.I Friday.

T.G.I Friday is an American themed bar and restaurant chain. As such, they can be found in many places and their prices are quite reasonable. However, my experiences with these American styled restaurant is that they try too hard to play the part but usually falls short with their service, and this one is no different!

Approaching the lady at the front, she looked like she was daydreaming and didn't wake up until we finished asking for a table for 2. She then took us on a walkabout around the restaurant before finally deciding to seat us at a table that we could have reached with much fewer steps.

The table was clean and tidy enough but Irene was missing a knife – no biggie if that was the only issue but not when the mistakes keep coming!!!

After waiting for a while, even after asking for someone to come take our orders, a waitress finally came, but not after stopping by the table next to ours to do who know what (they were already well into their meals and happily enjoying themselves – I just can't see why she couldn't serve us hungry and waiting guests first before attending to their petty needs). With the music banging on loudly in the background, the waitress had a bit of a difficult time hearing what I was saying but that's no excuse for getting my wine order wrong – TWICE! I explicitly ordered a SMALL GLASS of red. After waiting what seemed like forever for our drinks, the waitress finally came back and asked if I ordered a bottle or a glass! Geez! So I repeated myself, being very explicit in saying I wanted a small glass. Then finally, our drinks came and surprise surprise, I got a large glass of wine. Had I known earlier before I started drinking, I would've asked for it to be changed!

After another wait, the food finally came. At least the food was decent! Irene got a ribs and prawn combo while I had a New York strip steak. Both were really nice, especially the sauce. The meat on the ribs came off the bone easily while my steak was cooked well and was nice and soft – not the best quality steak you can find but that's expected given the restaurant.

Overall, the food was nice but heavily let down by the pathetic service!

Christmas feast 2011

Cold and quiet on the outside but full of warmth and happiness in the inside - such was our first Christmas in London!

The day started off with a Skype call to my family. Irene and I had sent some gifts over and we had arranged to open the presents together today, as we have done every year, but this time through Skype. It was a happy affair seeing everyone open their presents, and happier still seeing them happy with what they got.

Next was a Skype call to Irene's family. They had opened their presents the day they received it so no presents to unwrap in this call but still a happy affair nonetheless.

Following the Christmas greetings and catch up with our families, which last over 2 hours, Irene got to work preparing our Christmas feast. I helped out whatever little bit I can and after another 2 plus hours, lunch was ready.






Being a feast, we had more than enough food than we could eat so after stuffing down as much as we could, we decided to go out and have a stroll around to see what London is like on Christmas day. We walked along the River Thames to Tower Bridge. It was a very nice walk, with many people doing the same. Around the Tower Bridge area, the odd restaurant was open and was packed with people donning the paper crowns in Bons Bons and having a great Christmas feast of their own, albeit a more expensive one!

As we were quite full from lunch, we decided to have a later dinner so after the walk, we headed back home for some TV before Irene had a nice bath, followed by a one last feast to round the day off.







To cap it all off, we had a traditional Christmas pudding done the English way - dug a hole on the top, poured in some cognac, and light with fire. The blue flame engulfing the pudding was quite a sight!

Joy King Lau, London

No, I'm not talking about a joyful king called Lau; I don't think such a character exists, or at least not that I know of. Instead, Joy King Lau is a Chinese yum cha restaurant in London's Chinatown. Being relatively new to London, we're always on the lookout for places to go and after hearing about this place from a few friends, it made its way to our list of to go places.


Find Joy King Lau was not easy. It's not situated on the main part of London's Chinatown and is amidst a few other Chinese restaurants. Furthermore, it's name was hidden, or at least not obvious to us. As a result, it took us a bit of wandering before we finally found it.


Luckily, the restaurant had a few floors and given we were relatively early, we were given a table straight away.


The restaurant isn't like other Chinese yum cha restaurant. It's decor was pretty bland, like a cheap Chinese noodle shop or something. There was no fancy Chinese paintings or any Chinese styled artefacts of any sort. Even the table and chairs were pretty ordinary.


Unlike Lotus, Joy King Lau had quite an extensive menu. The prices are pretty similar to Lotus and the size of each serving seemed slightly larger too. Taste wise, I believe they had each dish bang on. Pastries were thin and elastic. Many dim sims had prawns and smelt and tasted fresh. None of the dishes were too salty. And, at least to me, the balance of flavours were spot on.


However, that does not mean there's no let downs. Some notable let downs included the cha siu cheung fun (pork rice noodle) was a little thick, the deep fried yam cake was only luke warm, some of the dishes did not have traditional ingredients, especially the chicken wrap, which had braised pork instead of cha siu and lacked mushroom and a piece of deep fried fish belly. The tea, though tasty, was cheap and we did not get the option to choose the type of tea.


Though there were let downs, the overall experience at Joy King Lau was pretty good. It didn't have the typical Chinese yum cha feel but it sure did have the typical Chinese yum cha taste, even if some of the ingredients were not traditional.