Allez Allez

I was brought to this private French place, Allez Allez, hidden in Tsim Sha Tsui district. So private, they didn't give you the address, but pick you up from the nearest convenient store instead. The decor was trying desperately to be French/European, I appreciated the effort, but for their prices, I strongly recommend them to hire a stylist.

Food was good though, started off with warm, crunchy outside but soft inside bread, with walnut & salsa dip.

Followed by pan fried duck liver in red wine sauce, which was rich & creamy

Seafood bisque, a tad to salty

The lamb with rosemary & mint sauce was so so, nothing we haven't tasted before

The beef steak was exquisite, tasty, tender and juicy. The roasted asparagus made a great accessory, either that or I had way too much red wine lol

It was the wrong season for strawberries, but they did it anyway, we ended up with this sour dessert. Yes, we didn't have a choice, they only offer one fix dinner course at a time

The cherub-laden namecard. Cute idea, but they could use (A LOT OF) improvements, both on the athmosphere & the food.

By the way, we were in a private room, charged a hefty amount, and we had to listen to the same darn song again & again & again for the whole 2+ hour course, the song kept playing on our minds long after, not in a good way

London, Baby

London's BIG BREAKFAST

It really was big, 2 servings of EVERYTHING, but I needed the fuel to hit London's High Street. So I promptly rejected my workmate's idea to share.

Chicken enchilada, my favorite Mexican, somewhere in Kingston

Tourists with a twist? My boss, trying to get Internet connection at dinner, the sombrero was a wifi access point? lol

Why is there NO Nandos in Hong Kong, can someone please please please get the franchise? Mr. Li? Anyone?

Juicy meat, smoky skin, hot, sour, tasty...just could not get enough of these Portuguese chickens! This one's from Frango

Ironically, our London workmates brought us to Cheers (where everybody knows your name). Isn't that an American pub? hehe...I had lots of screaming orgasms there (yep, tat's what the drink's called-SCREAMING ORGASM). I had fun sending the boys to the bar to get this drink (the bartenders are mostly female).

Imagine this: a cute guy saying to you "Can I have two Screaming Orgasms, please?" LOL

Queijo, Carne, Frango, Agua, Obrigada!

Yeah, those are the words we learnt when we were in Brazil. Queijo =Cheese, Carne = Beef, Frango = Chicken, Agua = Water, Obrigada = Thank you (for girls). We were pampered by good food in Brazil, a heaven for carnivores, salads and vegetable dishes are generally more expensive than meat.

We love this place: Bella Paulista

My Franca (Beef tenderloin Parmigiana, with fries, served with rice)

Liberdade sandwich: chicken fillet, yellow cheese, cream cheese, tomato, lettuce. It is yummiest hot sandwich I've ever had so far.

Augusta: beef tenderloin escalopes with onions, beans, rice & french fries. Did you see the amount of carbo side dishes? No wonder I could not get on with work after this, gulping down cups after cups (their cups are tiny) of Choco-cappuccino

The choco and cookie counter

Cakes...

and more cakes...

and more cakes!! I gained (opps lost) XX (private & confidential) lbs after this trip

The Black Dog
MAD MAD MAD Hot Dogs: with melted cheese, mashed potatoes, onions. Even their fries are drizzled with cheese powder. We also tried the local soft drink, Guarana


Cafe Paulista
chicken pastries, pão de queijo (local cheese bread), coxinha (chicken croquettes)

This is a lovely Italian place at the swanky Jardins district. Italian food is big in Brazil and to my surprise, people start dinner really LATE. We started around 10 pm, the restaurant was quiet until around 11:30 wow!

That was my first beef carpaccio. The waiters kept bringing you trays of food, you can decide to accept of decline. You will be charged for whatever you accepted.

The beef lasagna was the richest of the rich. It was officially the best lasagna I've ever had.

Churrascaria
All-you-can-eat barbecue places. There are buffet counters overflowing with food, and the waiters walking around offerring you barbecued meat dishes. I love stuffing myself up close to explosion, so I love churrascarias!


Japanese food is supremely popular in Brazil, due to its large Japanese community, the largest outside Japan. Look! I even found sushi at this churrascaria (I am loving the sound of it, should it go to my potential first born name list? lol), but this strawberry sushi kinda scared me.

Look at my plae, that was my second. I loveeee the sausages, the rice, the pasta, the deep fried items (don't blame me, I am from Indonesia, the land of deep fried fantasies)

At Daniel's Place in Santos
We were treated to a home-made lunch by Daniel's mum. We had super yummy chicken strogonoff (cream & ketchup sauce), served with rice and potato chips. Nothing's yummier than mommy's cooking. Thanks for the hospitality to Dan and family!

IN-TER-NET

The above bowl of decadent gastronomic pleasures gives a whole new meaning to the IN-TER-NET.
IN = INdomie (Indonesian Instant Noodles)
TER = TEloR (Indonesian for Egg)
NET = KorNET (Indonesian for Corned beef)
and they added a mountain of CHEESE

I know I could make this at home, but eating it at a local "Internet" shop, amongst the chain smoking, young, hip and happening locals, IS the real essence of this experience (It's a place to see & to be seen, Wiwid at Fatmawati).

Bakoel Koffie

As a part of my growing sense of nationalism, I always crave anything Indonesian. Every time I visit my home country, I went all Indonesian-Crazy, I just wanna eat Indonesian food, Indonesian snack, Indonesian dessert, drink Indonesian drinks, wear Indonesian traditional clothes, just Indonesian EVERYTHING.

Thus, for coffee, I wouldn't even as much as glance at Starbucks or Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, I'd prefer something local. There are many lovely local cafes in Jakarta, and my sis, the true "drunk this-eaten that" Jakartanian, brought me to this delightful shop, Bakoel Koffie. I love the athmosphere, accented by local touches here & there. The huge blackboard behind me was full of coffee-related quotes from everywhere. My favorite one was "Chocolate, men, coffee, some things are better rich - anonymous".

Bakoel Koffie serves International selection of coffee as well as Indonesian ones. My sis and I ordered Indonesian Iced Coffee, Oreo cheesecake (too bad no Indonesian dessert available at that time), and kopi tubruk.

Bakoel Koffie Jl. Barito II, no. 11 Jakarta 12130 Indonesia, Tel: +62 21 7228353

Waroeng Podjok

Waroeng Podjok = Corner Cafe @Plasa Senayan

The ultimate Indonesian appetizer/snack: prawn crackers drizzled with...the one and only...kecap manis

The decor is very Indonesian-Colonial, framed old Indonesian newspaper articles adorned the walls, I loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! My Filipina friend absolutely adores sate (Indonesian charcoal bbq meat skewers), so we ordered two different kinds (chicken & mutton), and hot serabi (Indonesian pancake with coconut milk & palm sugar sauce) for dessert. YUM YUM YUM

Smoky, juicy, tasty mutton sate (sate kambing)

My other favorite kerupuk (crackers)...I could eat unlimited amount of this, I could eat rice with just these crackers + kecap manis

Waroeng Podjok, miss you much!

Eating to the Fullest in Singapore

I lived in Singapore for about 1.5 yrs. I gained loadsssss of weight cos of the good, cheap food there. Every time I visit, these are some of the things I MUST have:

Fried Carrot Cake (diced carrot cake, covered with egg, pan fried) & Char Kway Teow (fried rice noodles, the Hong Kong version is just NOT the same)

Fried kway teow with gravy (those are all from Takashimaya Food Court)

No word can describe how much I miss this one: Dry Fishball Mee (this one is at Lucky Plaza's Food Junction)

Where does Hainanese Chicken Rice come from? Hainan? Noooo, Singapore!

The Street Ice Cream uncle's stall at Orchard Road

I got myself a Taro Ice Cream Sandwich, great for the hot, balmy day (Singapore weather report: hot, hotter, hottest. Balmy, Balmier, Suffocating. Opppsss, sorry folks!)

Caesar Salad & Chocolate Latte from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at St. Elizabeth Hospital (yes, we, Indonesians, practically live there)

Get your greasy fix here at Old Chang Kee

The famous Curry Puff

When will I see you again, my little curry puff? (This was really someone's nickname).

Taipei Street Food Adventure

This is one of those happy business trips where we could "work hard and play harder". Work generally ended before 8 pm, and there are many night markets in Taipei still open. Too bad my trip partner at that moment was on a huge diet and always dismissed my ideas of procuring more food. No Fun!

The dim-sums for in-flight breakfast meal, how cute! This cures my morning sickness (not pregnancy related, I just hated having to wake up at 4+ am to catch the first 7am flight)

The deep fried tofu (a bit tasteless) and deep fried fish cake (super yummy) with pickles at Shi Lin Night Market

I learnt a valuable food ordering lesson from my trip partner: when you are on trip, browse the menu, find something you have absolutely no idea about, and order them. These are the results (from Xi Men Ting District): vermicelli noodle soup, beef balls, century eggs with tofu, oyster omelette with peanut sauce, marinated pig ears. Pretty darn good concept, I've been a faithful follower since.

I want to highlight this oyster omelette with peanut sauce, it is the best I've tried so far, compared to its Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore counterparts.

The Taiwanese version of Es Campur (mixed of many sweet goodies, topped with shaved ice and syrup)

My favorite Taiwanese drink: Winter Melon Tea. Super refreshing for hot summer days

We just roamed around Da An district to grab a bite before catching our flight back to Hong Kong. The place isn't really a tourist area, so we could try places where locals really eat. Applying the same ordering concept, mixed with "looking around other people's orders" we tried all of these goodies.

Thick & chewy noodle soup in with pork balls

Shark jelly

Sliced beef in spicy sauce

What a tasty trip! It was the first time I did not scream out "I wanna go back to Hong Kong!" every, like-2 minutes on a business trip.