Braised Lamb Shanks with Rosemary

If you're planning for a dinner party but don't have much time to cook on the day of the party, here's a good recipe for you. This braised lamb can be prepared days in advanced - in fact, its probably better because the sauce will taste richer.



A braise is like a stew, but requires less liquid and has a longer cooking time. Allow about two and half hours for the lamb to cook.

Pour with a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Serve 6

Ingredients:
6 lamb shanks
2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped
3 large carrots, peeled, cut into 1/4 inch-thick rounds
10 garlic cloves, minced
3 slices of bacon
1 750-ml bottle dry red wine
1 800 g can diced tomatoes with its juices
1 400 g can low-salt chicken broth
1 400 g can beef broth
5 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel (the rind of 1/2 a lemon)

preparation
Sprinkle shanks with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add shanks to pot and cook until brown on all sides, about 8 minutes.
Transfer shanks to bowl.

Add onions, carrots, garlic and bacon to pot and saute until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Return shanks to pot, pressing down to submerge. Bring liquids to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover; simmer until meat is tender, about 2hours.

Uncover pot; simmer until meat is very tender, about 30 minutes longer. Transfer shanks to platter, tent with foil. Boil juices in pot until thickened, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon over shanks.

Adapted from epicurious.com

Coffee frenzy

Sensory Lab








I spotted this joint in David Jones as I strolled past this place on my way to get some groceries. My plan of having a quiet night was immediately dismissed as I stepped into this place. Out of the blue, a friend who was patronising the place called out my name , I joined him and his friend for coffee and we subsequently made our way to a long dinner.

To some coffee lovers, this place might seem a little pretentious and overly commercialised - with the staff wearing lab coats and the expensive interior. But there will always be a tension between keeping it "real" and commercialising it. On one hand, commercialing a place might make it lose its authenticity. On the contrary, commercialising it exposes the world of coffee to non-coffee geeks like me. My usual response to coffee is "mmm...this is good" or "this is not very good/the froth is burnt" - needless to say, very limited coffee vocab.

The girl behind the counter spent an entire 10 minutes kindly and enthusiastically dishing out her wealth of knowledge on coffee. In summary, she told me that real coffee is not the coffee as I know it. She tells me to think of coffee as a fruit and not as a bean. I responded, but isn't coffee grinded from its beans? Yes, but the beans are in the fruit, she replied. The coffee that I've been drinking all this while is brewed by one method - the espresso method. In fact, there are many more ways to brewing coffee. She introduced me to the siphoning method of brewing coffee.

Siphoning method:
Grind the coffee, add it to the top vessel. Add cold (or hot) water to the bottom. Put the bottom on a heat source. Add the top vessel with its attached siphon. Watch. Liquids defy gravity. The brew gurgles, but it's not boiling. Remove from heat source. Watch the coffee move back down, or "south". Watch the bottom vessel's brewed coffee gurgle as air is drawn through the spent grounds to release the built up vacuum. Remove top vessel. Smell. Ahhh. Pour. Taste. More ahhhh.
Source

My reaction to my first taste of siphoned coffee?

It taste nothing like the coffee I know but like bitter fruit juice.

For now, I'm still sticking to my usual coffee - espresso method but I will test new waters once in a blue moon.

Sensory Lab
David Jones
297, Little Collins Street
Melbourne

Dead man espresso












Saturday lunch saw me at Dead man's espresso. The timber shutters and concrete columns provide a very nice, classy ambience.

Again I can't comment much on the coffee, lest I embarass myself. In summary, coffee is good.

A word on the food. A fly on the wall told me that the food here is suppose to be excellent. Matt Preston (THE food critic) gave the food raving reviews - particularly the BLT pork belly sandwich. With high expectations, I ordered my meal enthusiastically. The BLT sandwich came with an absolutely delicious tomato soup. I'm not one for thick sour tomato juice but the tomato soup had an easy and good consistency for swallowing, it was not too sour and the broth they added into it was amazing. The pork belly was sandwiched between two slices of toasted bread that was laced up with some sort of herby-pesto filling. It was light and flavourful. A word on the pork belly. hm...i thought that was the most disappointing bit. I found the pork belly slightly dry and very thinly sliced. Maybe it was suppose to be like that - but the flavours from the pesto filling seemed to have overpowered the pork belly taste. Sigh, almost perfect but not quite.

Overall, I give the place 7/10. Most points for the ambience plus coffee. The food was good but a tad overpriced.

Dead Man Espresso
35 Market Street, South Melbourne


St Ali


















I'm loving this water truck.






St. Ali itself.

Saturday was a brilliant day not only because our happy stomachs were full from all the Dead Man Espresso goodness but because it was St. Ali's live street art and Laneway party. Graffiti artists were invited to paint the lane St Ali was situated on. Good crowd. Met quite a few people. Really kewl stuff. There was a dj playing. Booze. Mmm.. and of course, coffee from St. Ali.

St. Ali
12-18, Yarra Place
South Melbourne

Decorating my apartment balcony

From my apartment balcony, you can feast your eyes on the most spectacular view of the city of Melbourne.



However, the balcony is short of anything spectacular. In fact, its bare and ugly - used as a storage for junk.





Last week, I've decided that I've had enough and decided to deck up my balcony. It was a pretty whimsical idea, impulsively decided while I was having a shower. Later that night, I spent a good few hours reading up on different potted plants to buy. And oh boy, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

I imagined myself driving over to the nursery, pick out a few potted plants and ta-da, the balcony will be all so nice and pretty. But alas, good things never come easy.

To my surprise and amusement, there are so many factors to consider. Firstly, the wind. Because I live pretty high up, it tends to get pretty windy out on the balcony. Hence, I can't buy plants that are too small in case they topple over. On the flip side, I can't buy plants that are too big because my balcony is tiny.

The wind also causes plants to dry out quicker. Hence, I need to buy pots that are less susceptible to drying out the roots (terracotta pots dry out plant roots quicker than other pots).

Also because its a covered balcony, it doesn't get the full sun (more than 6 hours of sunlight). It gets sunlight only in the morning but no afternoon sun. It was only when I was at the nursery did I realise that most plants (especially flowering plants) needed full sun .

Plus, what kind of soil do I use?!? And how much do I water? Do I water a little everyday or do I water a lot at a time but only every other day? Did you know that plants need good drainage system, otherwise the roots will rot?

And I needed to get a set of table and chairs. I didn't want anything too expensive yet I didn't want anything too cheap-looking.

So much to think about!

After a couple of stressed-out days, I've finally redecorated my balcony.


I hopped onto gumtree and scouted for a garden set. I came across this beautiful garden set for a decent price. The table top is made of solid marble. And if you study the table closely, you'll notice imprints of fossils on the marble top. The heaviness of it is good to withstand the strong winds. I also like how it has a french feel to it and the colour matches the balcony tiles.


The plant in the gray pot is a Begonia. The fantastic thing about this flowering plant is that it doesn't need the full sun. In fact, in thrives in the partial shade.

In the hanging rattan basket are daisies, lavender and coriander.


On the left, is my little yet-to-grow herb garden in the wooden wheelburrow and in the small pots. I've sowed some thai basil and thyme seeds. Hopefully I'll see little sprouts in a few weeks *cross fingers*


I've painted this painting orange to match the orange-y flowers.


That's an orange million bells plant. This is suppose to be trailing plant. I'm hoping that it will grow and the flowers will overhang from the iron cage. That will be a beautiful sight (if it's still alive by then!)


More plants on the other side of my balcony. In that gray pot is premium potting mix. It's most convenient (but expensive unfortunately) to buy premium potting mix for container plants.

On the table is an oil lamp. I absolutely adore the lamp. It's made of a beautiful white stone and the heavy weight is once again, great for battling strong winds. The oil I bought is suppose to keep mosquitoes away.


On the left is a gardenia plant. In the white pot is rosemary. In the yellow pot is Birds of Paradise which will hopefully produce beautiful colourful flowers. (Can't remember the names of the other two plants).


Silver falls. A foliaged plant which is ideal for hanging baskets.



The past few days, I've been having my breakfast out on the balcony while watching the city pass me by. It's a wonderful feeling. It's these little pleasures that mean so much sometimes...

Now, the trick lies in maintaining and nurturing this garden =)

Siep Reap, Cambodia - Itinerary and tips

Before I forget, here's our itinerary for the Cambodia trip.

Day 1:
Flew into Siem Reap.
Checked into hotel near the Old Market.
Roamed Old Market.
Took a tuk tuk to Phnom Bakheng, an Angkor temple built on top of a hill, to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the whole affair is a bit of a circus act. It was almost impossible to find a good standing spot (let alone, sit) to watch the sunset. The temple was jam-packed with tourists and there were hundreds of tuk tuk drivers parked and waiting at the bottom of the hill for their returning customers. It was almost a miracle that we manage to locate our tuk tuk driver amongst the many tuk tuk drivers.

Headed back to the city, had dinner, roamed around the night market and a massage. Cheap massages are a plentiful in the city (costing between USD$8 - USD$10)

The town wasn't as shabby and dead as people made it out to be. We actually had quite a blast in the little town. There were a few street bustling with restaurants and streetfood cafes catered for tourists. There are a couple of night markets around. Sure, you shouldn't expect a vibrant nightlife like Bangkok but it was definitely good enough for us.

*Tip: Your ticket allows you to enter the Angkor area for free the day before after 5 pm. For example, if you bought a one-day pass for Sunday, you are permitted to enter the Angkor area after 5 pm on Saturday*

Day 2:
Rented bicycles, cycled to Angkor Wat (Small City). We really enjoyed our cycling experience. Bicycles are cheap to hire (USD$2 per day) and it's good exercise too. Another plus point is that you can roam the temples at your own pace without worrying about having no transport back or having the tuk tuk driver wait on you. A note of caution: you need to be relatively fit if you were to cycle to the temples. We probably cycled about 50km that day.

Angkor Wat is the largest and undoubtedly the most breahtaking of the monuments at Angkor and is widely believed to be the largest religious structure in the world. It is simply unique, a stunning blend of spirituality and symmetry, an enduring example of man's devotion to his gods. Relish the very first approach, as that spine-tickling moment when you emerge on the inner causeway will rarely be felt again. It is the best-preserved temple at Angkor, as it was never abandoned to the elements and repeat visits are rewarded with previously unnoticed details: Lonely Planet guidebook 2009.

We hired an unofficial local guide to take us around the temple. Our guided tour experience was an amusing one. We called it the "Slumdog millionaire syndrome". Do you remember the part in the movie where Jamil played tour guide to tourists at the Taj Mahal:

"The wife died in a car accident"

"I thought she died from child labour"

"Exactly sir, she died on the way to the hospital..."

Our tour guide's explanation wasn't exactly correct. I checked my guidebook a couple of times and found his explanations quite contradictory. We could have asked him whether pigs flew and he would have agreed with us to keep us happy. But it was all part of the fun. heh.

After spending a good three hours at Angkor Wat, we cycled to Angkor Thom (Big City). Angkor Thom was built in the late 1wth century and was one of the largest Khmer cities. The most photographed feature of this monumental construction would probably be its towers with four faces pointing in each of the cardinal directions.

Cycled back to the city.

Had dinner at one of the street food stalls.

Massage.

Day 3:
Headed to the floating villages of Chong Kneas on Tonle Sap Lake. If you want a break from the temples, you should take an excursion to the villages. Everything there was literally floating = floating shops, floating homes, floating restaurants, floating schools. Imagine living on water your entire life! Mind you, it is quite touristy and you might get irritated by the local kids pestering you for money. You need to take a tuk tuk to the Phnom Krom dock and then hire a boat.

After that, we decided to continue our boat ride to the flooded forest of Kompong Phluk. We fell in love with the locals in this place. It's definitely not as touristy as the floating villages and managed to interact quite a fair bit with the locals. The friendly village is made up of houses that are built on bamboo stilts of about 6m to 7m high. It's definitely an interesting sight and I think, its worth the visit. O, you can also take a boat ride through the flooded mangroves.

Day 4:
We headed back to the Angkor temples. The first temple we visited was Ta Prohm. This temple is definitely a must see! The temple has a msytical atmosphere about it because of the trees that have grown intertwined amoung the ruins. This temple was also intentionally left unrestored to retain that natural mystical feel. The popularity of this temple have been intensified ever since the film Tomb Raider (2001) was filmed here.

We then went to the East Mebon temple to watch the sunset. Even though this temple is packed with tourists during sunsets, it is still not overruned by tourists unlike Phnom Bakheng. I much prefer this temple for sunset viewing purposes. You can actually secure a place to sit here!

Headed back to the city, dinner.

Day 5
We went for a quad bike tour. It was definitely a good experience for all of us. We rode through villages and paddy field. We also made a one-hour stop at an orphanage. The children there are extremely diligent, discipline and smart! A boy I met there picked up the english language only a year ago and his english vocab was already pretty vast. They learn about 3-4 languages in the orphanage including their own local language (Khmer), mandarin, japanese and english.

To book for a quad bike tour, visit www.quad-adventure-cambodia.com.

We checked out of our hotel and moved into the Meredian for our last night. It was a good and relaxing ending to our trip.

Day 6
Relax in hotel. Enjoyed the complimentary buffet breakfast (yum!).

Checked out of hotel.

Adios!

Other tips:
If you have time, you should go for an Aspara dance performance. Its approx. $10-$25 for the Old Cambodian dance performance plus buffet dinner.

You do not have to change your money to Cambodian Riel. Most people deal with USD in Cambodia.

You are expected to tip the locals for their services. USD$1 should be sufficient. (You Americans have spoilt the market!!!)