All posts filed under: Travel

tenerife mountain

Tenerife

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We spent our first week of  2017 in the warm and wonderful Tenerife, the largest island of the Canaries situated on the Atlantic Ocean, about 100 km from west coast of Morocco. The island formed by an eruption of a volcano three million years ago. The landscape of the island is, in my opinion, most intriguing. The south side of the island features almost desert like landscape dotted with gigantic cactuses, aloe vera, weeds and palm trees where the climate is relatively dryer and warmer compared to the northern side. The more one travels north, where altitude is significantly and gradually higher with a more humid climate, the more green trees and shrubs one sees. Pine forests usually cover the mountain area. I was enthralled by the radical change of the ecosystem on this island which is unique to the world, and I was once again amazed by our wondrous nature. We landed in the Tenerife South Airport and had to drive along the coast to the north where our hotel was, therefore we had seen the change of landscape, the diversity …

roasted asparagus, lemon, chorizo and feta recipe

Macau – Food Journal Part II (with recipe)

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Although it was only in the beginning of March, the evening was warm but exceptionally pleasant. We (group of eleven people) were gathering in the front of a high-rise building, where we were going to have dinner at a supper club runs by a Macanese lady, Maria Couto at her home in the old part of Macau city, not far from my parent’s apartment where I grew up. She is a native Macanese whose mother is Cantonese and father is Portuguese. She is a home cook specialises in traditional Macanese cooking. Karen and my other sister Lily had been to Maria’s private dinner and they both impressed by her cooking. So they thought it would be special for us to enjoy some ‘home cooking’ instead of going to a restaurant as usual. Like many other who heard of Maria, who was also featured in editorial in several local newspapers and magazines regarding her supper club, would reserve an evening there, dining privately with splendid homemade Macanese food. Mixed feelings flooded in when I stepped into that very building where I used to frequent as …

Stir-Fry beef rice noodles Cantonese style recipe

Macau – Food Journal, part 1 (with recipe)

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Exactly one year ago, my family and I made a trip to Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan (as you might have read this post, this post and this post about our travel in Taiwan), and I think it is time to write about our experience in my home town Macau (which I have been planning to do for a while). This is the first part of my Macau food journal, and to be honest, I don’t know how many part I will be ending up writing, but for now, I let my sentiment take control of my writing. Sometimes, I like the unknown and just let the end come naturally. *** When we arrived at the Macau ferry terminal, it was around eight o’clock in the evening. My sister Karen and my brother in law Eric came to pick us up and drove us to the hotel not so far from the terminal. On the way, orange street lights illuminated the city the way it has always been, although the city’s infrastructure has changed so much since I …

clams with ginger and coriander recipe

Taiwan Part II – Sautéed clams and courgette with ginger, coriander and chili – plus our amazing day at Su-Ao fishing port, Hualien

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We spent the next morning hanging out in hot springs inside our guest house. There were hot and warm ones surrounding by big leafy plants and very old trees. Since we were the only guests, we got to enjoy all the different ones freely and peacefully. My sister bought us some silky warm house-made soy milk and savory sticky rice rolls made with glutinous rice, Chinese sausage and pickled vegetables for breakfast, from a shop on Jinshan Old street where we had dinner the night before (see last post), so in between dipping into different hot springs, we enjoyed the most tasty local breakfast with absolute joy! After a few hours of pampering, we were ready for our next journey. We headed east and drove to our next destinated city – Hualien, the second largest city in the east coast of Taiwan, a very popular tourist destination where the famous Taroko Gorge and Taroko National Park is located. There are number of small fishing ports in Hualien county situated along the coast of the pacific ocean where freshly caught fishes and seafood are sold …

taiwanese braised pork rice recipe

Taiwan Part 1 – Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice (Lu Rou Fan) and the delicious trip to the night market

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I do believe that food triggers one’s memory, for me it is the smell. It happened to me many times where I caught a smell of someone’s cooking when I was walking on the street. A familiar aroma of food that reminded me of Macau, or London or my childhood or just a memory of a distant event. It was often vague, then I would just stood still and closed my eyes, trying desparately to remember where I knew this smell from. Sometimes I relive the moment of a particular event, but sometimes, the smell of food will remain unknown and gradually fade away. It is exactly what happened to me the other day, when I had lunch with a friend in a small Taiwanese noodle house. The smell of the food there reminded me of our Taiwan trip earlier this year and it took me straight back to one of the best holidays I had so far. Taiwan is not only famous for its stunning mountains and national parks, but also their Night Markets where amazing local …

Sardines noodle soup recipe

My Time Machine – a short essay about eating alone and the Macanese sardines noodle soup (with recipe)

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I often eat alone. Lunch is mostly ‘my time’, the time I can choose what to eat, simple or complicated, or anything at all. The time to be truly myself – I often cook the food that I miss from home, which is a little bit too exotic for my husband, or too Asian (but to be fair, my husband is quite open with new taste, Asian or not, however there are still some dishes that he is not so keen.). For me, eating the food that resembles the taste of my home is to retrieve that feeling I dearly miss. Luckily I know a way to travel back in time…alone. There are few dishes I like to eat when I am home alone: streamed rice served with chilli bamboo shoot (pickle bamboo shoot from a jar!), soy marinated minced beef rice porridge, this is my favourite mum’s recipe, my mother used to cook this for us when we were feeling a bit under the weather, I think of my mother every time I eat …

Stuffed courgette flowers recipe

Stuffed Courgette Flowers with Ricotta and Anchovies

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This is a post about our family trip to Salzburg this summer which I have been meaning to write for a few months, but I somehow always got caught up with other events that happened after our holiday. Finally, I am writing it now and I can’t wait to share this stuffed courgette flowers recipe with you. I know some of you probably won’t be able to find courgette flowers anymore this year, but this recipe is a keeper and you can make this when courgette flowers are available in your area. It is easy and takes no time to make, I guarantee you will love it! But before I show you the recipe, I would like to tell you a bit more about our Salzburg trip, about the wonderful food that we had and how I made this dish from picking the courgette flowers to cooking them. A truly wonderful experience for a city girl like me 😉 I think I am going to grow courgette on my balcony next summer so I can make this amazingly delicious dish anytime …

phad-thai recipe

Phad Thai – a sunshine recipe

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When we were on the way to my daughter’s ballet class the other day, we walked pass a small Thai restaurant and there were a few people sitting outside having their early dinner. My daughter was quite excited to see the food they were eating, and she said to me, ‘mmm…it smells yummy! What are they eating?’ So I told her it was Thai food, and that we ate it on our holiday in Thailand. She smiled and said,’ Can we please go back to Thailand soon?’ So that night, I looked for the Phad Thai recipe I once wrote and made it for dinner that very night, taking us all back to our lovely holiday with great food and company, but without flying thousand of miles!   Needless to say Thailand has amazing cuisine; Fresh vegetables and seafood can be found anywhere, it is an absolute food heaven! With a few fresh herbs and simple cooking methods, a flavorsome meal will be ready in no time. We had some very simple food at the beach restaurant every day: …

ropewalk1

Food Market – London Part 2

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London is also famous for their food markets; Borough Market, Portobello Market, Camden Lock Market, Brick Lane Market and so on. Some sell food (meat, vegetables, cheese etc.) from local farms, and some are specialized in street food, where you can sit down for lunch or late morning snack. Some are a combination of the two plus other goods such as fashion, local specialties from around the world. When I lived in London, I loved going to these markets on a weekend morning to have breakfast and most probably to buy local produced meat and vegetables. They were not necessary the cheapest markets, quite on the contrary, but to spend more for the freshest food was always well worth it. We were planning to have lunch at what was once one of my favorites markets, Borough Market. However, we were told that there was another smaller, not so crowed (it was very crowed – which proofs it popularity!) food market which was not so far from Borough Market, in Bermondsey near to Tower Bridge. As this market …

English breakfast

The English Breakfast – London Part 1

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It has been two years since I last visited London, the city which I fell in love almost 20 years ago and where I lived for 14 years. It was my best friend’s wedding which brought us back to this beautiful city. For me, London is still the same, full of vibrant energy. The blue of the mid summer sky, the pale beige stonework of the Georgian architecture in the late afternoon sun, the red London buses and the black cabs moving through the city. These are the colors so familiar to me, and they were right there in front of my eyes, it felt so much like home. When I realized how much I really miss this place, I also realized that this city is my real home town. We were very lucky that the weather was extremely pleasing during the weekend we were there – a mix of clouds and sun, just the typical English weather!   So every morning we could sit on the little terrace just outside of the kitchen, in the garden of my old friend’s house …