u/Oiru

Nice late night spot for a cold Saturday night with a live singer as well - he was really good and it added to the whole late experience

I've never even thought of Thai BBQ as a subspecialty of Thai food. I really like strong flavours and I'm so glad this spur of the moment decision turned out to be 🔥

Took a friend here and between the two of us - $120

• Crying Tiger - wow. This makes me want to try the "Tongue on Fire" next time. I found this was a much better steak experience than most other places (mainly because of the charcoal sear and the sauce)
• Wing Zapp - cooked very well, but I wished it had a bit of sweetness to it
• Yum Shrimp Salmon - this was the weakest and had a strong "fishy shellfish" taste from the sauce. Prawns would be frozen from a bag, and the salmon was a bit bland and watery, likely frozen Tasmanian salmon. Not for me
• Red Chic Skin Skewer - honestly just a honey soy sort of flavour, so I'd try the other chicken skin skewers (Fried Crispy Chicken Skin) next time
• Zapp Chips - forgot the wings had their Zapp seasoning otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this. Same comment on the wings
• Bowl of rice - a bit dry
• Thai Milk Tea cocktail - this was surprisingly a decent size and reasonably strong
• Chang Beer - first time trying this. By itself, not great, but otherwise goes very well with the salty, strongly flavoured food and the whole point eating at places like these is to have fun and enjoy the company

Other tables had all these BBQ grills going on and they looked like very reasonable portion sizes

Overall, really good experience trying something new to me and hitting hard with the strong flavours. The only downside is the perhaps slower pace of food service, but would definitely come here again, especially in a larger group. Good alternative to Pocha if you wanted to try a different style of food but have the same vibes

I like to try new things and find unique ingredients that I might want to add to my pantry, and spend a lot of time thinking about how certain ingredients can complement each other and integrate into my freestyle cooking and (hypothetical) tasting menus at home

This is was my small haul, but turns out this was actually the most I've spent at the Food Show $148.89 + $38 Thursday ticket

• 3 x Marlborough Oysters (large and fat) - $10
• Te Mata Fig Molasses 100 mL - $10
• Tamco Premium Tamarillo Vinaigrette 250 mL - $15
• Unda Smoked Baltic Sardines 160 g - 5 cans for $30
• From K's "God Sauce" (Level 1 Mild Spice) 60 g - 3 sachets for $10
• Good Chow Blackfoot Paua XO Sauce 100 g - $25.99
• Good Chow NZ Pacific Oyster Sauce 250 mL - $28
• 2019 Askerne Late Harvest Gewurztraminer 375 mL - $19.90

Bonus things I didn't buy but either enjoyed or can pretty much imagine the combination working well:

• Green Meadows Meat Street Beef Rissole
  • This was surprisingly pretty decent as is, but didn't buy any cold things to take away due to logistics
• Riverside Farm Duck Breast (Confit Style
• Honestly always a nice ingredient to keep around even though it's not a New Zealand product
• Lotte Yukimi Vanilla Mochi Frozen Desser
  • Can imagine this drizzled with the aforementioned fig molasses and balsamic vinegar combo. I only wish the mochi was thicker, but this is a convenient guilty pleasure that I sometimes use with dusted tea powder on top (matcha/hojicha, etc.). I don't buy the other flavours
• Valura Calvados 70% Chocolate + Matakana Butter Toffee Crunch + Kimbella’s Candy Macadamia Brittle all mixed together. I think that would be pretty epic (and expensive)
• Bundaberg Dekapon Mandarin - not bad. Can imagine this to go well as a mixer. The mandarin flavour is high quality based on my experience (happy to be proved wrong though)

Was thinking of making a shellfish gnocchi (without the effort of making the gnocchi itself) so I bought fresh mussels for the base and added some frozen oysters and razor clams for fun

The store-bought gnocchi didn’t taste good to me, so I just settled with a simple mussel soup with a hint of white pepper

Fortunately, I also happened to come across some very fatty fresh bluefin tuna “wings” ($15/kg) while I was grabbing the mussels. Wanted to try a new technique and it turned out excellent. Marinate, blowtorch and then finish at a low temperature (not fan forced) oven bake for 15 minutes at 150 C. Would be even better if I did a finishing blowtorch sear and extra marinade too

Fantastic over some fresh jasmine rice and a hot cup of aged pu’er tea

I donated the gnocchi to the birds

Theme was “Next Travel Destination on a Plate”

- Braised leeks 🇫🇷
- ⁠French onion tart🇫🇷
- ⁠Sushi bake 🇯🇵
- ⁠Buttermilk chicken 🇧🇳
- ⁠Gochujang pasta 🇰🇷
- Orange salad
- Stuffed eggplant 🇲🇦
- ⁠Stir-fried noodles 🇭🇰
- Tea chocolates (jasmine green tea, caramelised white chocolate with oolong, 70% dark chocolate with black tea) 🇨🇳 (Oiru)
- Tiramisu 🇮🇹
- Banana bread 🇺🇸
- ⁠Chocolate chip cookies 🇺🇸
- Peach cobbler 🇺🇸
- Ginger milk tea 🇮🇳

Made some chocolate with some leftover couverture

- Jasmine green tea chocolate (not matcha, hence the more oxidised green colour)

- Caramelised chocolate with oolong

- 70% dark chocolate with oolong and black tea blend

Just having some fun today on my day off. Haven’t made these before so I figured I’d finally tick it off my list

Chogochujang and lavender honey glazed rainbow carrots

Jasmine green tea-infused, carbonated budou grapes

Bonus just as an experiment: ultrasonic cold brew sencha (unfortunately this did not work as well as I expected)