Mainly New York

I recently visited USA earlier this year and had the opportunity to try some of the popular food people rave about...bagels, pizzas, burgers, red velvet cupcakes....well ok these are actually what others suggest we eat while in NYC! There are definately other types of amazing food and the city is just to BIG to explore all of that!

I thought I'll post some of the simple yet very tasty bites we had while we were there!

Teriyaki chicken in a fried burger bun and their amazing delicious chicken wings that is what makes this tiny jap place popular:

Salmon cream cheese bagel which is one of my favourites:

Cream cheese bagel if you prefer it plain:

Red Velvet Cupcake, one of MANY around NYC! This craze has got me making some red velvets which I shall remember to post soon:

To prove that it is red inside:

Cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, super long line, waited for about 30 mins to get in:

Chicken on rice somewhere in the city that only starts business at night and the line is super long!

Pretzels and Kebabs everywhere in their carts along the streets of New York, you'll never starve!

Ice cream called dipping dots which is like small bubbles that is hard when you scoop it but melts in your mouth like an ice cream should!

That's all for now! Good to see that Polar bear in San Diego has a better diet than me!:

More Korean Food

From my previous post on Korean bbq with friends here in Auckland, I finally tried it in the country itself! It is very interesting and it's amazing to see what the koreans use here to substitute many of the ingredients used in Korea.

Korean barbecue, or gogi gui, refers to the Korean method of grilling beef, pork, chicken, or other types of meat. Such dishes are often prepared at the diner's table on gas or charcoal grills that are built into the center of the table itself.

I didn't get to try chicken or beef but mostly the spicy pork bulgogi which is one of the most famous Korean barbecue dishes, and it is quite different from beef bulgogi because the marinade is not soy sauce-based, but instead consists of gochujang and/or chili powder, garlic, sesame oil, onions, and ground Asian pear



I think the best part of the korean bbq is the side dishes you can put inside the lettuce leave!!! Every dish has to come with kimchi and there are many different types of them it amazes me!
Some side dishes:





Finaaly you put all the ingredients into a piece of leave with rice and eat!


Dumplings with rice cake:


Yummy filling inside the dumplings:


I love Korean food!

Seoul Street food

I absolutely loved my trip to Seoul, Korea for 3 short days! The shopping, food and people there were great! Apart from the typical dishes in korean restaurants like korean bbq, and thier rice and noodle specialities, I thoroughly enjoyed trying the street food. Everywhere you go, they tend to all sell the same food: it's either ricecakes with a sauce that taste a little spicy and kimchi like. They also sell dessert ricecakes everywhere with all kinds of toppings and pumpkin, red bean and chestnuts are very popular fillings. I don't particularly enjoy these as they are very blend and not sweet enough for my liking =)
Some kind of soup with some part of the ox I believe...


Ricecakes with meat dipped in sauce along the streets for passerbys to stop and eat on the spot:




I really enjoyed this: Tteokbokki (Stir Fried Rice Cake)


Sweet potatoes:


Thier street food is really good for those winter days!

Ricecakes (Deok): You can buy these rice cakes in portions, so if you want to feed a big group you can buy a whole cake block instead of a slice like what I did.
Korean traditional cakes have long been shared among neighbors and friends on many occasions of happiness and sorrow. The cake shape, content, and color vary from one region to another. When neighbors gather to share traditional cakes they extend their warmth and kindred spirit to others in the community. Korea people have always made rice cakes when they had tragic or happy moments in their lives. It was usually a considered good or delicious thing, and that is why rice cakes have been so closely related to all walks of life.


I prefer the sweet food from back in Malaysia and Singapore, all the kueys, tarts, tung shui....talking about it now makes me miss it even more!! (Oh must not forget any dessert with durian!!!)

Hong Kong

During our trip in Hong Kong, it was basically raining the whole time we were there! We had to borrow the hotel's umbrella and pay a deposit everytime we used it!

Hong Kong is definately very vibrant and colourful with all the lights at night. It is very crowded and packed, and I thought Singapore was bad but it's like 10 times worst!!!

I am amazed at the differences and similarities between Hk and other parts of Asia. Breakfast was a good experience here because some places did not have english in their menus so we had to point to pictures!

A typical breakfast here is a either macoroni soup with ham and egg or egg sandwich or congee or dim sum. They seem to have eggs and ham everywhere we go!



Simple egg sandwich with milk tea



This breakfast place we went to only sold Chee cheong fan, congee and soya bean milk (which I believe they made themselves):



On my last day in HK, I still have not tried the polo bun that I came here for so amazingly we went to this cafe and they had it there!!!
It is very big with a slab of butter inside it, I wouldnt say it was that great but with my milk tea anything taste good.



Talking about similarties, you don't actually have to travel all that far to get similar food back home like this in Ipoh: Kaya toast and milk tea. Yes I love my milk tea and Im starting to like the Xi Mut tea at Old white town coffee now everywhere in KL. Probably more popular for Malaysians than Starbucks!



As for ice Kajang and the lot, you also can find it back home. At the shopping mall beside our hotel, we decided to have dessert at one of this japanese restaurant that sells the most amazing desserts i've never seen in my life! There were so many to choose from and I honestly wanted to try them all but just stuck to what I knew best - red bean green tea shaved ice topped with ice cream. I can't believe I finished the whole thing myself! - It was huge! That's probably how I put on the weight! ok part of it anyways!

Short trip back to Singapore

We decided to drop by Singapore for a day since we happen to be in JB so might as well.

For dinner, we decided to have chicken rice and stopped by Bugis to meet up with a few friends and oh my goodness I am amazed at the change! At the basement of Bugis used to be a food court and a few shops in the middle selling bags and the like. Now, it's filled with more food and more food!

It looks like a night market where they sell all kinds of finger food except that it is in the shopping mall with air conditioning inside. There were lots of new food concepts that I've never seen before. There were food from Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan etc etc it felt like I was in Taiwan or something! "(even though I've never been to Taiwan but it looks like those markets I see on TV)

Mochi Ice cream with all different flavours, you can buy these in a box like how you would buy moon cakes etc:



Fried stuff on sticks:



Korean food: Meat on sticks



Pancakes: this one was always there but had to take a picture of it since I didnt have one this time



I was going to take more pictures but I felt really weird standing there in the midst of everyone looking so I only managed to take a few.

I wanted to buy and try everything but obviously that is impossible because we were going to have dinner and I can't finish everything?? But I had to try something so I tried this otah thing which again is a new concept for me because I've seen Otah in the leaf but not like this. It's called Otah taquito and there were a few flavours: Crab, chicken, prawn, nyonya and I tried the crappy I meanet crabby one. It tasted abit like crepes but with that Otah spicy taste.



Too bad I didnt have much time there to look around...next time.