Himali Cha Cha

Our tastebuds went Indian again and this time our dining gang joined us in exploring Himali Cha Cha at Sukhumvit Soi 35. We Hobbits had been wanting to go to this place long time ago but never had the chance to. So this time we finally made it to this place.

Himali Cha Cha actually has three branches and is one of the oldest names in the town. It is quite a well-known place consider that it has been operating for decades. As we looked through the menu, this place serves a wide variety of exotic North Indian cuisine in a traditional style.

HCC restaurant is actually a house. If you are coming from Sukhumvit road, it is hard to miss this place because the sign is one of the first signs you will see. If you are walking or driving from Sukhumvit road, turn to Soi 35 and it is on your right hand side. It is surely impossible to miss on the sign. The parking space is very limited but this place is not always crowded. The quite atmosphere was the first to capture my attention. The inside is well-decorated with Indian portraits and tables are nicely set. If you happen to come in the afternoon where the weather is a little humid, remember not to sit too far from the main counter. What happened to us was that we sat way behind and the weather was humid. The air cond was off and we had to eat like sweaty cows!

Since I am just learning about Indian cuisine, I don't know the exact name of most of the dishes we ate. So let me show you some pictures of the food!

See this bowl of water with lime? It's for washing your hands and NOT for drinking. A story was told that a friend who was a first timer in India drank the whole bowl in an Indian restaurant he visited, thinking it was drinking water. :)

Sukhumvit Branch: 2, Sukhumvit soi 35; Tel: 02 2588843

Convent Road Branch: Convent Road, Silom; Tel: 02 2381478

Charoenkrung Branch: soi 47/1, Charoenkrung Road; Tel: 02 2351569

Sesame Steamed Broccoli

I almost forgot about the broccoli we purchased last week and it was sitting in the fridge waiting to screaming for us to do something with it before it rots. I, in moments of recipe block, couldn't think of any recipe for it. So many times, again, google became my resort.

Steamed Broccoli Recipe Ingredients:

1 tsp. oil
1 tbsp. sesame seeds
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. sugar
Steamed broccoli

Steamed Broccoli Recipe Cooking:

Heat oil. Brown sesame seeds in oil. Add the final three ingredients. Pour on top of steamed broccoli. Cover for a few seconds and tadaa!

source: Vegetable Recipes Cooking

Vientiene Kitchen

We visited Vientiene Kitchen yesterday out of desperation for Thai food. Five years ago, Hobbit lived and worked at the same road (Sukhumvit 36) where this restaurant is situated but nothing ever gave us a reason to stop by since there were several other good Thai restaurants around. This time around, the ones that we frequent was close when we arrived and Mac, our friend was desperate for some "khra pao kai" (Thai basil chicken fried rice). As soon as we stepped in, we fell in love with the Thai Northeastern style ambiance almost immediately.

The moment you step in, the waiter will ask if you prefer to sit the Thai style way while dining, which is to sit side ways on a sitting pillow or sit at the normal table, we chose the latter. The menus listed varieties of authentic Thai-Esaan and Laos cuisine. You can order almost anything Thai here and some Laos of course for this restaurant specialized fusion food from these two countries. Aom, our Thai friend made the order and ordered crispy shrimp cake, papaya salad, grilled chicken, basil chicken fried rice, sticky rice, and mix vegetable. I was happy for I've been craving for khao niaw and gai yang this week.

The food was glorious! If I knew this place served yummilicious gai yang, I would have recommended it to my parents. Oh well, maybe I should plan for their next visit. Since it was around early evening, the performers were getting ready with their traditional instruments for their show. Yes, they have a mini stage where according to the waiters, Thai classical dance and traditional music are performed to entertain customers. Not only that, they have karaokes too! Now, how authentic is that?

We spent almost 2 hours enjoying the atmosphere plus the food. It was indeed a good way to just sit and spend time with visiting friends. I noticed their website from the front cover of the menu. So here it is: Vientiane Kitchen

This place could be crowded during lunch time and in the evening, so I suggest that you make early reservation to cut the cue!

Park Food Hall

Have you gone to Park Food Hall, Emporium? It's one of my favorite place to dine exquisite food. With international menus, it's one of the best eateries (food court style) in town.

Well, today we decided to go all Mexican and Indian. Here are some pictures to make you salivate! :)

nacho supreme 179B


Murgh Peshwari 130B


Aloo Gobi 100B


Condiments


Plain Naan 45B

...and others without pictures:

Saffron Pullao 75B
Ice Coconut 70B

Total costs:
Service charge 5%
629Baht.

Place: Park Food Hall, Emporium 5th floor
Similar place: Market Place, Ground floor, Paragon, Bangkok

Stir Fry Chicken Cutlets with Kim Chi

Cooking is such a therapeutic activity. Today I experimented on Chicken cutlets with Kim Chi and it turned out delicious-miscious! Hehe! Let's see what were among the ingredients:

2 stems of Kim Chi cabbages, 1/2 kg chicken cutlets, fine slices of gingers, 1/2 tbsp mushroom sauce, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp salt, pinches of sugar, 1/4 cup of water, 1/4 of oil, and celery for garnish.

Heat oil in pan and slide in fine slices of gingers. Stir fry until ginger is fragrant. Throw in chicken cutlets and stir fry. Cover for a minute. Add Kim Chi and water and mix well. Add mushroom sauce, salt, pepper and sugar and stir the mixture for about a minute and cover for 2 minutes. When the mixture is sizzling, turn off heat and serve. Garnish with celery. Perfect recipe for cold days! :)

A&W Root Beer Chicken

Obviously my sweet tooth is on a loud speaker craving for sweet food. It happened that HHobbit bought a can of A&W root beer on his way to pick me up. As soon as I entered the car he offered his root beer. There goes the light bulb! Inspired, we rushed home and immediately got to work. Here is the ingredients I used. I didn't list down the exact amount of each ingredient because it is so much so depends on the amount of chicken or even the people you are cooking for. I am sure most of you have the measuring instinct when it comes to cooking right? :wink:

Ingredients:
1 can A&W root beer
minced ginger
minced garlic
chopped fine celery
extra virgin olive oil
corn flour
halfed chicken wings
chicken seasoning

HHobbit didn't quite like the sweetness from the root beer flavor, so to tame that we decided to add cooking sake just to bring out a little pungent taste to it.

Novotel Cakes

When we were about to leave from The Mall yesterday, we decided to have a late evening tea when we reached home. So we decided to try Novotel Hotel's cakes this time. Apparently the kiosk has 30% off since it was closing time. So our appetites were triggered a bit. We bought a chocolate cake, caramel tart and a mecademia flavored cake which all in all cost us less than 130B.

As soon as we reached home, HH prepared peppermint hot tea and we took displayed the cakes. I was excited since anything mecademia you name it, I will be first in the row! Well, so I started digging the edge of this:

*blink-blink* ..........Eeeeeewwwwww! Not sure why it was too mushy and slimy but I told Hobbit that I ain't going to continue forking it into my mouth! Not even a slightest taste of mecademia in it and what is the bread-like thingy? Eeeww! Then Hobbit said even dare said something like put-it-there-and-i-will-deal-with-it-later phrase!

While I was with that disappointed gesture, he was enjoying his chocolate cake. I did taste it and honestly it was not spongy and soft at all despite the okay taste.

Then I thought the caramel should taste good because it's in a cute foil cup a piece of chocolate holding the signature of Novotel nicely. Well, I had a spoon and a spoon and another one and on until I finished the whole cup. It was quite sweet though but I expected it that way. What is caramel tart without the sugar??

Before long I noticed Hobbit has gobbled up the whole mecademia cake which I rejected earlier on. Hungry, was the excuse. Well said! No food wasted!

Huh! Falala said the little lamb because the next morning Hobbit got a terrible stomach ache thanks to the smudgy cakes! He called sick for the day and squatted the whole day journey! Ooh, I was fine thank God.

So I thought hmm...Was it really the cakes? So I had a chat with a colleague at school and told him about Hobbit's condition after the cheap late night discounted cake incident and guess what? He told me the same thing about being poisoned from eating Novotel's cake buffet. Not only my colleague admit to it, there's another person I later found out who experienced the same thing. Now what does that foretell about going for desserts at Novotel? Be extra careful!

Hokkien Mee

Hobbit and I were craving for the well-known Hokkien Mee usually available from Chinese restaurants back home. So to quench our taste buds, I went to Jusco and bought all the recipe needed and cooked what we call HOLY HOKKIEN MEE since I don't use pork lard, pork crackling bits and fresh yellow noodles.

Here's my recipe (if you don't mind the holiness):

Half packet of Japanese udon ramen
1/4 cup of thin sliced chicken
a handful of sliced green vegetables (can be replaced by Chinese cabbage)
Chinese dried mushroom
dark soy sauce
thick soy sauce
mushroom sauce
1/2 t fine sugar
1/4 t chicken flavoring
1 cup of water
pinches of salt
sprinkles of pepper
1/2 cup of olive oil

How to do it:

1. Turn the stove heat to medium-low and pour olive oil in the hot wok.

2. Slowly increase the heat and fry the chicken. Add 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce.

3. Fry the udon noodles (make sure to soak it in boiling water until it soften first if you're using this) and add 1 tablespoon of thick soy sauce, sugar, some pepper, chicken stock, chicken flavoring and water. Stir-fry the ingredients and later add the vegetables. Cover and increase the heat again. Don't forget to check and stir once in a while.

4. Remove the wok's lid and season with oyster sauce, light soy sauce and water if the udon is too dry. Wait for a minute and turn the heat off.

5. Serve with chilie condiments or tomato/chillie ketchup.

Scrambled Potato Patties

Reached home from work and too lazy to cook complicated meal. There were some left overs potatoes and was able to make scrambled potato patties.

1 large potato, finely chopped into tiny cubes
1 onion, minced
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 cup crisp flour, mixed with water
2-3 tbsp olive oil

Varieties at School Anniversary's Fair

My school celebrated its 5oth Anniversary today. I was expecting lots and lots of alumni to crowd the school or at least the covered court but it was otherwise. Nevertheless, the event was a successful one. I didn't take a lot of pictures since Hobbit Hub was using it most of the time plus the weather was hot! Here are some that I took from the event. Food of course! LOL!