Posted by Kanga.
I never turn down sushi.
Especially when delivered by boat.
I draw the line at little octopi.
Archive for the ‘food’ Category
Random California Sights
December 29, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Boxing day started with a super burrito at a local taquería. This meal carried us through the day.
Followed by a stop by an Indian video shop, where you can also get hand painted pictures on leaves of Jesus or Ganesh. We purchased a few movies to initiate the family. The shop keeper was happy to find out that DaddyBird was well versed in Bollywood movies.
You know you’re in California when there is a wide selection of cooking oils, most organic, in a big box store.
Next day we were in the East Bay area.
Here’s the view from one of the many hills.
And the night view from the same hill.
Beanstro: All Day Breakfast
November 23, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Even though Life is throwing us a few challenges, we still have to eat. We had previously seen this restaurant in the new Fujairah City Center Mall, but had just eaten at the time, so promised we would come back sometime. What’s the attraction? All day breakfast.
DaddyBird took advantage of the all day breakfast to have a steak and egg meal.
He supplemented this with mashed potatoes and gravy. The potatoes were real, not powdered (instant).
Quite tasty.
We felt quite at home, like being in a Portland, Oregon restaurant. Nice decor, good coffee and tea, and good variety on the menu.
The Adventure of Fried Chicken
October 25, 2012Posted by Kanga.
As a young child, my first anatomy lessons came at the kitchen sink as I watched my mother cut up the chickens we raised on our farm. I would point at organs and ask “what is that?” and “what does it do?” Once the organs were extracted and sorted out (edible and non-edible) she had a very specific and methodical way of cutting up the chicken for frying. It was very similar to this:
How to cut up a chicken per Gourmet Sleuth
with the addition of cutting out the wishbone and taking out the breast bone and sternum before cutting the breasts apart. There was also a very specific way of arranging the chicken in the cast iron frying pan so that it would all fit. The cutting method makes for very easily identified pieces once cooked and served. You knew if you were getting a thigh or a breast.
This is apparently a very Western thing. In the East, it is all about a sharp meat cleaver and the cutting up is rather random. It certainly isn’t limited to separating the pieces neatly at the joints. Any and all bones may be chopped in mid shaft. This results in a guessing game as to what you are getting and the proliferation of bone shards. You might even end up with all joints and no meat.
I miss the logical, methodical, industrial revolution way of cutting up chicken. I also miss the wishbone. How does any one get their wishes around here?
Everyone Needs a Zebra Pan
October 17, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, you are seeing zebra striped frying pans. Totally hip.
We may have thought Fanta Orange was orange flavored before, but the NEW flavor is deliciously orange. Completely different.
I’m not a Coke drinker, but I do find the bottles nostalgic.
I think some settling has occurred in transit.
Fujairah Food Tour
October 6, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Friends from Dubai came to Fujairah for a food tour of our favorite restaurants. We began Thursday evening with Nepal Kitchen House.
We started with the signature momos (steamed chicken dumplings).
Pictured above (upper right, clockwise) Aloo Jeera (potatoes, cumin seeds, tumeric), Aloo Dum (potatoes, coriander, tumeric), Chicken tass (chicken, puffed rice, crispy onions), and Badam sandeko (peanuts, onions, tomatoes, chilies).
We also sampled vegetable rice and chicken rice – rice, lentil soup (daal) and curried vegetables/chicken.
After all that, we called it a night and headed off for a good night’s sleep before starting again with an 8 am breakfast of paratha (flat bread), chana (chick peas/garbanzo beans in a curry sauce) and tea at Al Khan Restaurant.
This breakfast cost 36 AED ($9.80) for 6 people ($1.63 each). They kept the bread coming and would have refilled our bowls, but we had to pace ourselves.
We headed to the corniche for a bit of sun. It didn’t take long to have gotten more than enough heat. It isn’t quite winter, yet. The temperature high that day was 97F.
“Second breakfast” was at Sizzling Restaurant which opened at 11 am. Doing this tour on a Friday was problematic due to Friday hours. Many businesses are closed, some until 4 pm. Any future food tours will have to be done on Saturday.
Sizzling Restaurant is one of three great Filipino restaurants in town. Breakfast entrées consist of fried egg, garlic rice and a variety of meats.
We ordered and shared three items – tapsilog (beef), adosilog (chicken), and tosilog (chicken).
Next, we attempted to explore the discount stores, but again ran into the Friday hours problem. Only one store was open.
We headed down to Kalba mangroves to look for turtles. The mangrove area has been closed since March due to plans to develop the area. We weren’t even allowed to walk out onto the bridge to get a better view of the turtles, but we still managed to see a few.
When we returned to Fujairah, it was a bit too early for the bull butting and too early for bread at the Afghani restaurant, so we were off to Oriental Restaurant for Singaporean/Malaysian food.
Pictured above is crispy shrimp omelet, egg plant sambal with shrimp, chicken and salted eggs, and mixed seafood soup.
Beef and kai lan is my personal favorite. Also pictured is hainanese chicken.
We returned to the bull arena in time for the last bout.
One last stop at a discount store ended our day around 8 pm. A long, busy, and tiring day. Great fun with great people.
If you would like to get Mita’s take on our tour, read this Mita56’s Blog: Fujairah Food Tour
Shopping for the Easily Amused
September 17, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Here in the cheeps aisle, they are not talking about marshmallow cheeps. Surprisingly, they didn’t call them “crisps.” It’s a French store chain, so it would probably be treason to use the British “crisps.”
We are surprised and pleased to see Thums Up soda on the Carrefour shelves. (Apologies for the blurry picture, but I am trying to take pictures on the sly.)
It is always interesting to see what two products are taped together to form a special deal. Here two bottles of water are taped to a six pack of soda pop. In the freezer section, there was a small tub of mango ice cream taped to a huge tub of vanilla ice cream.
The variety of pet treats is interesting. Hamsters, exotic birds, canaries, parrots, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rabbits, and cockatiels. No cheetah chews or tiger bites though. I was tempted to get rabbit treats to see if Oliver, our vegetable eating cat, would like them. Bert is the one we have trouble finding treats for.
And for your reptiles – mixed carnivore. Does this mean bits of carnivorous animals? Tiger bites? Chewy cheetahs?
I remember the good old days when the bagger used to put more than one item in each bag. I need to be more disciplined about taking canvas bags, but that always throws the bagger into confusion. What to do?!?!?! It doesn’t keep them from putting one item in each bag, however. (Yes, that is Oliver sniffing around the bags. He’s trying to find the curry leaves, one of the many things he loves to eat.)
American Breakfast Breakthrough
August 11, 2012Posted by Kanga.
I’ve blogged previously about the difficulty of finding an American style breakfast in the UAE. ( Here ) IHOP (International House of Pancakes) recently opened in the Mall of the Emirates (Dubai).
If we were in America, IHOP would not be our first choice or any choice, in fact. IHOP has been around a long time (est. 1958) and quality of the food and service has decreased over the years. Because this restaurant is new and probably performing at it’s best in food quality and service, we gave it a try.
The place was buzzing with both customers and a large team of staff. I’ve been craving eggs benedict for months now, so deciding what to order was easy for me.
Over the years I have observed as DaddyBird would read the whole menu, considering all his options and then order country fried steak. After protesting that he doesn’t do that, he ordered country fried steak. I rest my case.
The food was quite good. The hollandaise sauce on the eggs benedict was very cheesy. Yum. A refillable coffee caraffe and a jug of grapefruit juice topped it all off. Service was very attentive and good.
Ramadan 2012
August 7, 2012Posted by Kanga.
Last week we revisited the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding for the iftar meal. This is an excellent program introducing tourists and ex-pats to Emirati food and traditions. The volunteers do a very good job of explaining traditions and are open to any questions.
We opted for “Eastern wear.”
We attended the event with some of our friends.
Arabic coffee served by a bedouin.
The meal.
Several young Emiratis volunteer at the center. During the dinner they mingle with the attendees to converse and answer any questions. Mohammed, from Sharjah, had his hands full in conversing with us. Our friends are all “old timers” in the UAE. DaddyBird and I, with our four years of residency, are the new comers. Mita came to Dubai about the time that young Mohammed was born.
After the meal, the group walked to the nearby mosque for a basic introduction to Islamic concepts and rituals.
After a walk back to the cultural center, it was time for dessert and a question/answer session.
Just in case you came to this blog for information on Ramadan, here are the basics: Ramadan is a month in the Arabic (lunar) calendar. During this month, muslims fast during the day (sunrise to sunset). This means no food or liquids. They also exercise discipline by refraining from things like sex or smoking. The goal is to focus on being a better person. Once the sun sets, the fast is broken with an iftar meal. This meal may be done in the home, at the mosque, or at a restaurant. Another meal, suhoor, is eaten in the early morning hours before sunrise and the beginning of the next fast. It is not uncommon to stay awake most or all of the night and sleep during the day. Work hours are usually reduced to 6 hours (8 am to 1 pm, or 9 am to 2 pm). Some businesses close during the day and open after sunset.
For those in Dubai, we recommend the meal related events at the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding. During the other months (non-Ramadan) they serve both breakfasts and lunches. It is well worth the time and money.
Golden Fork
July 21, 2012Posted by Kanga.
A new Golden Fork restaurant opened in Fujairah recently. Of course, we had to try it out.
Not knowing the size of items, we ordered too much food, starting with soup. I had the corn soup and DaddyBird had a seafood bisque.
Followed by vegetable spring rolls.
Then the rest arrived – grilled salmon, fried rice, and tapsilog (rice, fried egg, beef). The waitress was cute when DaddyBird ordered tapsilog. She didn’t think he understood what he was ordering because it is a Filipino dish and she didn’t expect a big white guy to order it. It wasn’t strange or spicy, so I am not sure what the potential problem might have been.
Golden Fork is a Filipino restaurant chain. Filipino food strikes me as a strange mix of the exotic and mundane. Seafood and white toast/peas/carrots. I suppose that from their perspective the seafood is the mundane and the white bread/peas/carrots are the exotic foods brought in by the colonizers.
Living the Travel Channel 