Chicken Varuval

Sometimes I wonder why there're so many Indians in Copenhagen but the food never taste the same as what we have back in Malaysia. I'm not sure about others but to me, home version definitely taste better. Even the best Indian restaurant in town (that is pricey for sure), the food is fine but something is just missing. Could it be some herbs? some spices? I don't know.

I do know, however, that I have found a cheaper cure to my Indian food craving and it taste absolutely authentic (or as authentic as I can cook), thanks to the recipe from My Kitchen Snippets. Well, also thanks to the kilos of curry powders and herbs and spices that I brought home (then to realize the same are available in Copenhagen albeit more expensive).

I've never heard of chicken varuval but I'm glad I found it. The blending is not part of my preferred method in the kitchen (think of all the washing afterwards, machine can never clean it well) but it's definitely fast. Maybe I should try the traditional pounding instead. I added more chili than recommended in the recipe & the result is good!

The only drawback I have in my version of chicken varuval is that my curry leaves are dried version. I haven't been able to find fresh ones in Copenhagen. I put triple amount than stated in the recipe just to get a little taste of it. I believe it'll taste great with fresh curry leaves. Hence, I'm now set on a quest to search for fresh curry leave in Copenhagen :)

Picnic @ Frederiksberg Have

What should be done in summer when the sun is bright, the weather is warm & you're in a country with lots of beautiful parks? I choose to go for a picnic (and so do other hundreds of Danes apparently). Walking among other picnic-ing families, couples, friends; avoiding illegal cyclist (cycling is forbiden in the park) & joggers; finding 'remaining' picnic spot in Frederiksberg Have (Fredericksberg Garden) certainly is challenging with a picnic basket that weights 2kg.

Nevertheless, the quest was completed & a nice (albeit a little wet) spot just by the lake was found. Laid the picnic plaid on the grass, displayed all the stuff that I brought (sandwiches, apple juice, dessert wine, grapes, cherries & a book) & a few photo shots (which caught curious eyes of my picnic neighbour) marked the beginning of a tranquil 2hrs picnic.

Going back with a nearly empty basket (and definitely lighter) & peaceful mind is definitely a good way of spending an afternoon. Perhaps next time I should take the rowing boat ride in the park as well. The summer is just beginning, I have time ;)

B-day

I am sad to announce I can no longer visit any castle / musuem in Europe (well, certain places) for free since I past my recent birthday. I always feel reluctant to grow up, having the fear that I can no longer be childish and can no longer 'utilize' my 'young innocent look'. However, there is this one thing that keeps me looking forward to birthday -- present :)

This year, away from home, I celebrate it a little different from how I used to. Baked 2 chocolate banana cake, brought to work & shared with my colleagues; bought a jacket for myself; received a noise cancelling earpiece, perfect for in flight usage (I check the price out later to realize it's expensive), 2 french cook books (in English, the author wrote the famous 'Chocolate'), a Gaudi book & a couple of 'art-ish' books about Picasso & Max Ernst.

Had a wonderful dinner at Khun Juk, a highly recommended Thai restaurant offering modern Thai food http://www.khunjuk.dk/. The starter was brilliant while the main course is so-so. As for dessert, I had mangosteen & 'buah langsat' for the very first time in Copenhagen accompanied with home made coconut ice cream. The best part: I don't have to pay the high price, haha...I wish everyday is my birthday now.

Claire's

A very kind lady, Claire Hitchcox provided cosy accommodation for my 5 days southern france trip. She owns a house near Magalas in Southern France (43°29'54.87N, 3°12'17.76"E, google earth file link). For those who plans to visit southern france and is interested in staying in a self-catered typical french house with fully equipped kitchen to cook some french cuisine with fresh local ingredients; who likes to take a cool swim in the pool during the warm french summer; who enjoys waking up to the bird chirps and walking in huge vineyard; who'd like to forget about busy schedules & just let the time stands still; I'd definitely recommend Claire's house.

Claire's place's centralized location is an added bonus. There's a small chateau within walking distance (take a morning jog/run around the vineyard & surely won't miss it); Montpellier is about an hour drive away; Sète takes about an hour drive down south; 30mins drive away, a lively french market await in Pézenas; and Barcelona is just 3 hours drive away (save the flight cost ;)).

Montpellier is one of the very few big city in France that doesn't contain Roman influence. Some of its streets have great differences of altitude and also very narrow, which gives it a more intimate feel. Sète, with enclosed salt water lake on one side & the Mediterranean sea on the other, has rich oyster & mussels fields. With canals running through the city, this beautiful city has a special squid recipe of its own - Seiche Farcie. I didn't get to try it but here's another way of eating squid, the french way ;)

Southern France

As a contrast to the hussle bussle Barcelona, blessed with beautiful geographical factors, Southern France offers tranquility, peace, one of the worlds largest grape plantation & of course, the fermented grape juice - wine. Various soil, wide variety of grapes, suitable weather plus the wisdom of wine maker, one can always find the right wine that compliment local food.


Sharing some pictures of Southern France small town & vineyards. I was there too early so the grapes are small & minute but just take a look at the volume. Imagine all these small grapes bloom to become huge bundles of ripe grapes waiting to be process in the hands of wine maker and turned into bottles of wine.



White wine emphasize on its transparency, reflective & glossiness, from clear to golden amber in colour (goes darker with age), typically drink chilled, suitable with seafood, grilled vegetable or cheese. Rosé, with tempting pinkish colour are produced with skin peeled grapes. Recent years, some wine producers keep the grape skin for a short fermentation period just to produce more intense colour, suitable for tapas / grilled meat / asian food. Red wine forms deep purple / maroon colour to red brick hue & usually taste more distint has more 'umph' in it, typically associated with red meat.

Sparkling wine, (which I always thought is Champagne until proven wrong) range from white to rosé, refreshing & bubbling, perfect for celebration activities and they really taste good especially with a strawberry in it, hmm...Dessert wines are very sweet, typically with golden body and as the name implies, good with desserts (cheese, chocolates, ice-cream etc). Both sparkling & dessert wines are highly recommended to serve chilled.

To me, drinking wine is more than just tasting it with mouth, it's also an experience with nose when the taste, aromatic & smell of wine lingers. Pairing wines and favorite foods should not be ultra complicated, if the general rules are follow. I recall someone used to say the essence of wine can be tasted best from red wine. Personally, I prefer sparkling over white & white over red, so I guess I'll never make it to an 'expert' in wine tasting, hehe...

Barcelona cont'

I've mentioned a lot about Barcelona but still feel like I need a blog more to just briefly share the trip.

Market, always the best way to understand local (my philosophy). Full of locals & tourists (the stall owners are already used to picture snapping tourists) in one of the most famous wet market in Barcelona - La Boqueria, we found exotic fruits, rabbit meats, pig's brain and tonnes of mediterranean fishes on ice bed. My tour guide book says there should be a deep fried worm stall in the market but we can't find it, think it's no longer in business, else would make a good blog, I guess, hehe...

I finally tasted true spanish tapas in one of the tapas restaurant in the market (it has a small entrance facing inside the market but a huge nice entrance from main street La Rambla). Chick pea salad, hot wings, deep fried crab meat, meat balls, mussel with mash 'something', fish with mussel, spicy sausage (the best) & small spanish sausages. I won't say it's excellent but it's good enough & certainly authentic.

Walking along La Rambla towards the sea and passed the Columbus monument, we came to Rambla de Mar. Harbour with lots of yatches, a wavy wooden walkway stretches out over the water of the port and at the end a new shopping mall. Walking around, one can find some yatches that host lunch / dinner, also a historic museum. We didn't stay long because were on our way to take the cable car that is out of service >.< !!!

Since I previously mentioned my great dissapointment in the cable car & my miserable tired walking trip in Mont Juic, now we skip the misery (actually more tiring than misery) part to the happy part - the beach front.

Frank Gary Fish which looks more like a whale to me (does it mean it has to be called Frank Gary Whale / Mammal instead? hmm...). It's not the easiest to find since it's wel hidden between 2 tall buildings but since we were walking blindly, we manage to fidn it!! Just for the sake of picture taking to complete my desire of 'visiting every place (or as much as possible) mentioned in my tour guide book', haha...

FG Fish is located at the Olympic beach front. Sea water is still cold but the sun is surely warm enough. Girls in beach wear & topless muscular guys playing beach volley ball (not forgetting those that walked by)...wonderful eye feast while I sipped my €9 watermelon juice under shade in the beach front promenade. Well, beauty has its price ;)

Torre Agbar - we took taxi there, wanting to snap some pictures & have a close look at the tower. The friendly taxi driver try to explain in spanish aided with lots of sign language that there'll be light show at the tower at 10pm. Unfortunately, our limited spanish missed out a very important part during the translation where the light show only happens on weekend. So we stayed there from 9pm until 10.20pm to realize it's not going to happen & went back dissappointed.

Our 'last dinner' before we leave Barcelona was at the 4 Gats (the oh-so famous 4 Gats). Reservation is a must to prevent dissapointment. Unfortunately for us, we reserved on a day where the restaurant receive TV interview & the restuarant section was closed until 7.30pm (we booked at 6.30pm, how smart). So we dine in the café section instead.

Service is warm & friendly, food is so-so. Environment? If you don't mind the noisy environment & would really love to trace Picasso's foot step, then you'd probably like it. I like it as a tourist for its historical background but as a diner, I prefer a more quiet cosy environment.

I think I'll visit Barcelona again, not in very near future but definitely worth considering. My only advise is to beware of pick pockets. While in the bus to Parc Guell, we witnessed a pick-pocket stealing from an old lady in the bus, so beware! Also, stay away from Catalan cremé brulée unless you really want to taste it for the sake of trying :)

Barcelona

Barcelona, beautiful city, 100 times more happening & exciting than Copenhagen (personal thought, no offense) with so many to see & do. Major attractions in the city are actually within walking distance (well, only if you consider 2km walking distance) and naturally I walked a lot, also because one of the travel companion (the one with map) thinks that we should walk. The persistancy ends by day3 and change to taxi ride (we didn't even bother to run up & down taking metro anymore, too tired, haha).

My only regret is I never get to try paella & sangria. Also, a lot of places that we went are under construction / maintenance, preparing for the coming summer. And the cable tower from seafront to Mont Juïc that is out of service for a few weeks after we walked miles there. How nice, no specified dates, just 'few weeks'! Then again, one need to have some reasons to go back to Barcelona, isn't it? Anyway, still found some interesting stuffs to share.

A shop named 'Kuala Lumpur' which is also the name of Malaysia's capital city but has nothing to do with Kuala Lumpur. Only cloths are sold there, I was hoping for Asian stuff, too bad :s

The Barrí Gothic that we walked pass almost everday (because our hotel is just few streets away on La Rambla) without knowing that's the Gothic area. I though it was somewhere further away until day 3 where we found this symbolic gothic area mini sky-bridge.

It's a restaurant! Barcelona has a very famour 4 Gats restaurant where Picasso & Gaudi used to visit and this one is called 1 Cat, hidden in a park on Mont Juïc. At that point, we were tired, thirsty, exhausted, hungry & were so happy to see this. Food was not that great and we were soon interrupted by a group of 40 small school kids. Then again, I would still visit there again for the environment. Sitting underneath orange tree with Barcelona view ;)

Our walking journey took us to the Olympic tower. Used to host Olympic games but now it seems to me like just a deserted area. The tourist crowd, well no, the occasional small tourist group, visiting this tower is all the life form we see. Even the fountain is not functioning anymore & the water is definitely dead. Still a nice tower :)

One of our walking trip leads us to this no name (actually there should be, but I'm not sure, something like passage de sert) and we took a drinking break in this small alley. Lady in the opposite shop has good voise & she obviously likes Mariah Carey. See the gradually smaller window as the level of the building increase? Popular Catalan design for sun exposure.

We left the passage just to come back 30minutes later to visit the restaurant that we had our drink break. (We say the char grill meats while 'norrowing' the restaurant's toilet) and guess what? the best goat cheese pizza that I've ever tasted (in fact I think it's the best food for the whole trip, my grill meat was too rare), yummy yummy!

Arc de Triumph is where we spent our 30minutes after the drink break, snapped some pictures & decided the char grill steak is too tempting and turned back to that small alley. We went back to the arc again the next day to walk from the arc, through a park, to the parliament & the zoo, then continue to the Olympic beach. Amazing eh? I'm amazed with my own walking potential, haha...