Teppei

Teppei was recommended to me by a friend who had lived in Tokyo for a number of years - I take his food recommendations very seriously indeed. Just next to Keisuke Tonkotsu King at Orchid Hotel along Tras St.


They have a few side dishes that appear to be free-for-all. This was some daikon stew.

Lotus root and mushroom salad

Daikon with octopus

Each set comes with rice and soup

It's a small place but I think the space works well. All counter seats.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by the tempura - it was light, fluffy, hot and not too oily.

The normal lunch set had about 6 or 7 different items, including eggplant, one prawn, fish, and chicken.

They also have different salts - green tea and curry.

I liked the curry better. But both were good.

I suppose the rice isn't from Fukishima.


1 Tras Link #01-18, Orchid Hotel
Tel: 6222-7363

Pasta and cheese

I got a Jones the Grocer hamper for my birthday last year from old friends, and we were really excited at trying out cooking some of the stuff.

Italian pasta - dried but not like the instant sort

Really pretty curves

I bought about $10 worth of clams from my local market.

Washed them and soaked them in salt water.

Chopped up leek, onion and garlic

In went the garlic

And in went the clams

Opening after a few minutes

Ready to eat!

The pasta was really yummy - tasted like fresh pasta

We had some meatballs that we mixed with a tomato paste

The hamper also had some exciting crackers

And the most amazing fig jam for cheese

We had some lovely brie from Hunter Valley as well as some other hard cheese that the husband bought (can't recall now what it was)

Almost perfect

Goodwood Park Hotel High Tea

I've been to the Goodwood Park Hotel for high tea a couple of times in the past few months with different groups of girlfriends, and I've really enjoyed it. The food is good quality, and the ambience is great for catching up with the latest gossip. The set comes up to about $50 per person, taxes included, and comes with 2 drinks from the coffee+tea menu. They have fantastic tarts, sandwiches and desserts - enjoy the food porn.

Claypot Rice (without a claypot)

The husband had to work on New Year's Day, and I decided that I was bored enough to cook dinner for him and his team. I had some lovely lup cheong that I had not had the chance to use, and after googling for recipes with lup cheong, found a good one for Claypot Rice. Fortunately I had some really nice mushrooms too. These were gorgeous.
I bought shaoxing hua diao wine from Tianjin in this super cool bottle a couple of years ago. Fortunately it keeps forever.
I also wanted to do a roast pork in anticipation of CNY coming. Gotta practice. This was the lor bak marinade.
With black soy sauce that we had read from reviews was really good, which we found in Malaysia
Salting the pork skin to dry it out
Piercing the underside to make sure the marinade seeped in
Steeping it in and ready to dry out for a couple of hours
The mushrooms soaked and sliced. I kept the liquid for cooking the rice.
The lap cheong looking unhealthy before slicing
Even more unhealthy after slicing
I marinated the chicken thighs in a medley of oyster sauce, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, sugar, pepper, soy sauce and a few ginger slices.
Fried the mushroom lapcheong chicken mixture for about 5 mins on the stove, before putting it on top of the rice in the rice cooker.
And blanched some kailan to assuage some of the guilt
Had a pot of watercress pork rib soup on the side
2 hours later, the pork was done : )
I mixed the chicken mixture into the rice, and let it cook for about 20 mins more, with chicken stock and some of the mushroom water.
The final product, albeit in a plastic container.
I tried some myself and it was pretty good, I have to say! Next stop, Sia Huat for a claypot : )

Nadaman (yet again)

This was another of our decadent midweek lunches at Nadaman. We shared a beef teppanyaki set and a cod set.

The entrees - pork and veggies
Soup with a fish tofu cube
Sashimi and chawanmushi
A random salad
The beef and veggies. This was really quite good - the beef was tender, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and just a tinge of garlic.

The husband had the cod - this was quite nice too but a bit too wet, in my opinion. I would have preferred a drier version.

The fried rice was not bad but fairly ordinary.
The cold udon was just okay. The udon had probably been rehydrated, and lacked the chewy texture that fresh udon has.
Dessert.