¡Viva México!

Hello blog-world, it's been a while. I apologize for my prolonged absence, it's been somewhat of a hectic year so far... but I'm ready now, I think, after having somewhat settled myself. BUT I have so much to tell you all.

First up, Mexico. In early March, a few friends of mine were heading off to Mexico for a conference and had decided to take the opportunity to travel around the country beforehand for three weeks. I was understandably jealous.. so to send them off before they went, we went to Taco Bill the night before they flew out for dinner. Now, I realize that of all the Mexican/Latin American restaurants we could have chosen in Melbourne, anything, ANYTHING at all would have been more authentic than Taco Bill. Think Los Amates, Mi Corazon, whatever. But we love(d) how tacky it is, and we just wanted a big ass margarita and some nachos, so Taco Bill it was. It was, of course, your typical pseudo-Mexican affair - nachos with salsa, melted cheese and sour cream; burritos, tacos and quesadillas wrapped with chicken or beef, lettuce, cheese and tomato on rice and beans. Being no food snobs, we loved it, and loved also the huge huge margaritas they serve. Made us all very happy, I should say, though I'm not sure if the staff really felt the same about us.

However, Taco Bill is not the end of my Mexico story. Because by 2am the following morning, I had hopped online, found a space on the same flight as my friends and was packing frantically so I could fly out with them in 10 hours time. The adrenaline was pumping and I was too busy packing and making sure I had everything sorted before we got on the plane, but once I was served my complimentary drink 20 minutes after takeoff, I started to freak out majorly. C did a wonderful job of calming me down though and got my adrenaline pumping again when we got to LAX.. and after that, I was just ecstatic, it was the most spontaneous thing I've ever done and probably the best thing I've ever done as well.
In my 10 days there, we spent a few days in Mexico City, then down to Acapulco, then Huatulco before I boarded a bus to head back to Mexico City to the airport and the girls went onwards. We saw amazing sights, was completely immersed in the whole culture, tried every food we possibly could, saw as much as we possibly could. And good lord, we ate. Things are ridiculously cheap, to the stage where if we paid more than 50 pesos for a meal (around $5), it was expensive. The food is good, the tequila amazing and the beaches almost as beautiful as back home.

So, the food... Mexico City saw us eating at roadside taco stands where I'd love to tell you what was in them, but unfortunately I don't speak or read spanish, so ordering mostly consisted of pointing and thus I don't actually know what I ate. Only that it was good. One of our group was a bit worried about food contamination, but pffth I'm asian, I'll eat most things roadside or not, and frankly, in my opinion, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Other memorable meals included eating at cantinas, which, according to Wiki, traditionally refers to a kind of bar normally frequented only by males for the purpose of imbibing alcohol and partaking of appetizers (bontanas). Apparently, according to Lonely Planet, they often traditionally had signs that expressly prohibited entry to women and children and although some of these restrictions are beginning to fade, it is still viewed as.. not inappropriate, but more, unusual, for ladies to be seen visiting a cantina. However, as I previously mentioned.... no hablo espanol. So in we went, and for 25 pesos ($2.5), the price you pay for a Corona, we got a fish stew, deep-fried whole fish, bread rolls, stewed pork and some rice. Plus a picture with mariachi's. Awesome. If you ever get the chance, take advantage of the tourist thing and do it, it's the real authentic experience and you'll be glad you did it.

Other meals included the more typically known enchiladas and quesadillas (maize tortillas wrapped around chicken, beef or pork, with cheese sometimes, covered with salsas and moles, or sauces); the best tortilla soup i've ever eaten; lots of rice; even more mole and beans. By the end of the trip, I was quite sick of the maize tortillas, but it's true what they say, nothing beats authentic food. No more Taco Bill for me anymore.

Another amazing find was our introduction to cajeta, a sweet caramel made from goats milk, giving it a rich flavour. Traditionally, it's eaten as a spread or filling, but is also wonderful on its own. We were given a little dish of this candy heated up so it was gooey and delicious, and a few spoonfuls each was more than enough to satisfy our sweet teeth.

If you take anything away from this post, let it be this: go to Mexico. Delicious and wonderful things, people and weather await you. Despite what some may say about safety and pollution and otherwise... personally, I don't think these things should stop anyone from exploring the world. The world will be what it is and if you don't take chances, you're not going to live life as fully as you can. So be spontaneous, live and eat. Even if the stuff you eat does come from the side of the road.

After coming back from Mexico, I was left with massive wanderlust without the ability to actually do anything about it. I had planned on heading to Europe with C (again) this July, but finances and other factors meant that I'm now in Hong Kong visiting family instead. Capitalizing on the Mexican thing, however, I really wanted to do something with Mexican food at some point. Today is J's birthday, so 2 weeks ago when we were all still back in Melbourne, I invited B & J and a few others around for a Mexican fiesta involving fun and food. We had 10 in total, and since J LOVES tacos (he is American), I decided to make tacos with a little bit more of an original twist. Dinner thus involved a menu of 40 burrito wraps, 20 taco shells, lots of lettuce, tomato and cheese, guacamole with extra avocado, chorizo con queso (chorizo and cheese), a simplified version of chicken mole and kangaroo fajitas. Lots of food, but delicious it was.

I took a look on the internet to see if I could get some easy versions of these recipes. The chorizo dish I got from here, and it turned out quite wonderfully despite me using just normal chilli flakes (albeit quite a lot of it), instead of the more authentic poblano chile. The kangaroo fajitas was basically just kangaroo steak sliced into strips, then sizzled with onions, garlic, capsicum and my own spice mix of cumin, coriander, chilli powder, chilli flakes and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I just improvised and it turned out woderfully.

My favourite, however, was the chicken mole, which had a bit of an interesting twist to it. Mole, a Mexican sauce commonly used in many Mexican dishes was first developed in Puebla City in the 1680's, in a convent, no less. Since then, the neighbouring state of Oaxaca has become famous for a particular type of black mole which includes the special ingredients of special spices and chocolate. Mexican chocolate in itself is unique in that it contains large amounts of spices within them, namely cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. In searching for a simpler, but similarly unusual recipe, I found the following recipe. It is very very easy to make, and since it was a sauce, I sort of just went by a chuck-everything-in-in-rough-amounts kind of approach. It turned out beautifully, but I suspect this is a kind of recipe that is hard to mess up.

Easy Chicken Mole
2 tbsp olive oil
6-8 boneless chicken breasts (though I just bought chicken thighs and cut them up into smaller pieces)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
3 cups salsa (I used hot)
1 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp chilli powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp peanut butter

1. Heat oil in a skillet. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and brown the pieces in the hot oil in a single layer until golden brown on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Pour out all but one tablespoon of fat from the pan and add the onion. Cook until softened. Add garlic and continue cooking.
3. Add salsa, chicken broth, chilli powder, cocoa powder and peanut butter. Stir till blended.
3. Bring sauce to a boil, then return chicken pieces to the pan, covering them in the sauce. Lower heat and cook uncovered, basting the chicken pieces occasionally with the sauce until cooked through and the sauce has thickened.

N.B. The original recipe, found here, says to let the sauce thicken for 30-40 minutes, but I found a mere 20 minutes was quite good with the pan covered. But it was always going to taste good, really.

Yet more to come (really!) - Tjanabi, Sydney and Hong Kong.

Catching up (yet again)

Yes, I know, I've been gone a while. I'm sure my readers (all 3 of you, maybe) will have missed me, but right after exams, I went gallivanting places with no internet connection, hence my disappearing act. As I write, I am sitting in a nice little room in Oxford, England, with the sun shining in from the window onto my desk. Looking out, I see beautifully lush green grass and a babbling little brook that bubbles merrily while snow white swans float down, surrounded by mallard ducks bobbing up and down. Why am I here? C, R (another friend from uni) and I are all here at Oxford University for a month long summer school program on Int'l Human Rights Law (since we're all in law school and stuff). On our way here, C and I decided to do a bit of travelling. Ergo, involuntary internet hiatus.

Leaving Melbourne about 3 weeks ago, C and I took 3 days in Hong Kong to see my family. Noy many (if any) of you may know this, but I lived in HK for 8 years after moving from Adelaide at the age of 10, after which I headed to Melbourne for uni. HK is possible THE BEST place for authentic Chinese food of any kind, and there is just so much of it everywhere. The entire culture is built around eating, resulting in a bustling, cosmopolitan city where East meets West, especially with regards to the food. I know you guys are hanging out for the food talk, so I'll get right down into it. We literally ate and ate and ate for those 3 days. We had authemtic yum cha in the morning surrounded by lots of old retired men and women gossiping and reading the paper, as steaming bamboo containers of har gow (prawn dumplings), mini glutinous rice packets wrapped in lotus leaves, malay cake (a beautifully spongy Chinese.. well, sponge, cake) and char siu pao were put before our hungry mouths as the smells wafted into our noses. The most unusual dim sum they had was a black and white sesame seed paste bun. I LOVE sesame seed generally, and sesame seed paste filled dumplings are my favourite Chinese dessert, so this was an absolute winner in my book. Beautiful.
We also had Shanghainese food, another one of my all-time favourite cuisines (right up there with Indian). We had succulent xiao loong baos (steamed pork dumplings - the special part is that there's a bit of tasty soup enclosed inside the dumpling when they steam it, so be careful when you bite into it lest a hot stream of soup squirts out onto your clothing, or even worse, into your eye) and dan dan noodles (Shanghai 'pulled' noodles in a spicy peanut-y soup), both favourites of mine.
Our last meal was at a local restaurant in Shen Zheng, an area whose restaurants specialise in roast goose. In my opinion, roast goose is a hell of a lot better than duck. The meat is more moist, there's a great depth of flavour and when you roast it the chinese way, the honey-glazed crispy skin (fat and all) is an essential part of the taste when eaten with the dark meat. Taken simply with plum sauce, steamed rice and some green veggies to balance it out, it makes one hell of a satisfying meal.

After leaving HK, our original plan was to head to London for a week. Whilst in HK, however, we decided that this, being both our first times in Europe, would be a great opportunity to see other parts of Europe. Somehow, with the help of lastminute.com, we found ourselves a few days later in Ibiza, Spain. Now this place is known mainly for the crazy insane all-night discos, beautiful beaches, hoardes of English tourists and the origin of many a Ministry of Sound music album. Those of you who know, the original Cafe Del Mar is actually here. I'm not really into techno or house music at all, so me? I was just there for the sun. Our days consisted of waking at noon, having a huge meal with sangria, margaritas, pina coladas or daiquaris, falling asleep on the beach for several hours in the afternoon, wandering amongst the rambling windy cobblestoned streets to do some shopping, snacking on some fresh watermelon, more cocktails or homemade icecream, tanning some more, watching the sun set with yet more cocktails, then heading to a club till sunrise when we would flop into bed - then do it all over again 6 hours later. Trust me, the best and surest way of getting over jetlag. But the food, oh, the food. We feasted on paellas, fresh calamari, fish and other seafood caught earlier that morning. We had some rather touristy, b ut still excelent, Tex-Mex food - burritos with chorizo, nachos with beans, cheese, sour cream and guacamole, tacos with chilli con carne. To commemorate our last night there, C and I indulged in the best Spanish food we've ever had at El Rincon de Pepe, allegedly the first tapas bar in Spain. Whether this is true or not, it was the best tapas I'd certainly ever had, and judging by the number of locals there, it was probably true in the town of San Antonio (and possibly Ibiza). Accompanied with a lovely white wine, we started with some bread and olive oil, as well as a marinated eggplant, peppers and capsicum salad. Gazpacho then arrived, as did a Spanish spinich omelette (more like a frittata than anything else). The best deepfried baby squid then arrived, all crispy and hot and tart from the lemon juice. Mussels cooked with vinegar followed, as did lamb kebabs with home-cut fries. Full as we were, C insisted on trying at least Spanish dessert, which turned out to be a version of creme brulee. It was served cold, but with a crisp toffee top and tasted deliciously cool, feeling more like a firm custard. We rolled home after that, perfectly content.

Sunset with sangria

Paella, dispersed with beautiful prawns and mussels; and deep-fried calamari rings, eaten surrounded by a bunch of Spanish middle-aged men drinking coffees and no doubt gossiping about the 2 obviously foreign girls in their midst.

El Rincon de pepe - Best tapas EVER.

Unfortunately, all holidays must come to an end at some point, and ours unfortunately did. Heading into London was an interesting experience. I admit we were a bit biased against London, having just had the holiday of our lives in Ibiza. C was definitely not impressed with London, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. As for myself, I enjoyed the architecture, the history, the museums and found everything fascinating. The British Museum and Library was awesome, as was Westminster Abbey and Cathedral. Hamley's, a children's toy store, was fun, even for grown-ups such as ourselves. Harrod's was ridiculously overpriced, though the famed hot chocolate is apparently to die for. Other foodie highlights weren't much to speak of, except for a fantastic £4.5 full English brekkie at a random cafe - two pieces of toast generously buttered, sausage, fried egg, mushrooms, baked beans and bacon. Deliciously greasy and satisfying. C also managed to find the perfect muffin at EAT whilst waiting for our flight to Ibiza from Gatwick airport - i think it was something like bran, cherry and oatmeal. Absolutely wholesomely delicious. Despite all this, I'm not fully convinced by London. I've seen enough big cities, and with the exception of the history behind it, London seems to me just like any other big city - large, packed with people, sometimes unfriendly.

After arriving in the beautiful little town of Oxford, I have been impressed with the charm of this small town as well as the quaint little cobblestone streets and the beautiful Oxford campus that spans across the whole Oxford CBD. I'm living at St. Catherine's College, which, as a 'conference' guest, we have been getting the best treatment, and this means 3 meals a day, catered fully. Breakfast is a full smogasboard of cereals, pastries, cold meats, fruit and toast as well as hot breakfasts with sausages, beans, mushrooms, eggs and bacon. After our morning classes, we have coffee/tea with biscuits. At lunch, we have starters, then the main meal (yesterday was seared swordfish steak with some sort of creamy sauce, salad on the side, bread roll, cheese and crackers and icecream for dessert). And if that's not enough, dinner is pretty much the same as lunch. I mean seriously, yesterday was confit of duck with honey and ginger glaze, served with creamy mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy; topped off with banana cheesecake with caramel sauce. We are so well fed here that I'm positive if I eat everything, I will go home with added weight (the complete opposite of what I was hoping for), so I've taken to skipping lunch just so I will at least be hungry for dinner. That seems to have backfired against me today, as its 6.10pm (dinner's in 50 minutes) and I've been absolutely starving for the past 2 hours. It's been lovely recapping what I've been doing, but I've missed the foodie world. I'll keep you guys, whoever you are, posted on the highlights of English cuisine. Till then, cheerio!

The beautifully green Hyde Park Corner.