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Friday, January 28, 2011

Food Trip Friday 055: Deep-fried soft shell crabs



After nearly three weeks, the PELUKA sisterhood met today for a day of coffee, food, and more coffee! Tee-hee-hee. This time we have a new PELUKA member with us and already had her first taste of PELUKA sisters day out.

Photo Credit: PinayMum.
We started our day with coffee at Gloria Jeans coffee shop in Boeungkengkang. Day outs like this with my friends make me feel so thankful for the great bonds we have all established. Now that we have a new "member", we all can't wait to hang out with her as soon as she and her family moves to the Penh later this year. Over coffee, we talked animatedly, giggled like teenagers while at the same time debating where to go for lunch.

In the end, we went to Champs-Élysées Restaurant along Trasak Paem St. (St. 63). PinayWife, Mumsified, PinayMum, and My Furry Place have dined at Champs-Élysées many times already and can attest to the yummy-ness of the Chinese food that is the specialty there. So I had this “surprise me” kind of mood that day and left it up to them the task of ordering our lunch.

The food came one by one… they were all so delish... but for me, this is clearly the winner:

Deep-fried soft-shell crabs, a delicacy in Cambodia. 
This is  a very tasty Chinese specialty that is popular around the world.  It is so crispy served with fried garlic bits and the usual soy-garlic-chilli dipping to complete the deal. You can literally eat everything – as in you can eat them all of the crabs – and it is very difficult to stay away from. You will want to reach out for more. Soft-shell crabs, by the way, are blue crabs in their molting (shedding) stage, when crabs shed their shells to become the much sought-after and highly-prized restaurant favourite. In the Bisaya-Hiligaynon language, we call soft-shell crabs, or any other soft-shelled crustaceans like shrimps, as luno.

Who would ever thought... that a restaurant with a French name serves one of the best Khmer and Chinese  dishes I've ever had... where else but only in Phnom Penh! Definitely worth coming back to with my husband.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Food Trip Friday 054: Omelet a la Sreisaat


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Another product of my experimentation in the kitchen. At a first glance, it looks like pizza… but it’s not. It’s just an omelet with a lot of borloloys (extras). Since I made this from scratch for dinner last night, I shall call it…

Yes, we make our omelet with a blow-torch! Blow-torching cooks the top portion nicely and without burning the bottom part. It also gives us a nice burnt/toasted cheesy taste. With the blow-torch I take my time and don’t move haphazardly from one side of the omelet to the other until the spot I’ve been working on has  achieved the “burnt/toasted” colour that I want.

Oh, and as dessert, my husband made another batch of his choco-corn flakes. Yum.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Food Trip Friday 053: Happy-herbed beef la’ap

 

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Khmer children's party Last week, my husband and I got our first invitation for 2011 – it’s for a birthday party of my former colleague’s son and daughter. Unlike the usual Khmer parties where a tent is put up in the street in front of their house, my friend and her husband, both middle-class kids, opted to hold their kids’ party in a restaurant with over 100 guests invited. Still, it is a birthday party Khmer style with a live band and entertainers taking turn to, well, sing Khmer songs and entertain the crowd. Each table sits 10 people. A table doesn’t get served if there are still empty seats so it is common to see people eating while others sat and wait. Oftentimes, you are seated with people you do not know from Adam.   Anyways, it was a formal, sit-down, six-course meal consisting of Chinese-Khmer dishes. There were cold cuts, fried battered seafoods, tasty seaweed soup, a huge steamed fish, and this beef la’ap:

It has some roasted ground glutinous rice that added a nice texture to it. My husband said he felt a sudden urge to smile for no apparent reason after eating beef la’ap. He thought that some “happy herbs” – if you know what I mean *winks* – might’ve been thrown in for added flavour... *lol* Because I don’t like beef that much, I only sampled a tiny slice of beef, so I didn’t feel what he felt. Oh, and by the way, one interesting thing about this Khmer-style multi-courses meals is that the rice is served last, just before the dessert!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Food Trip Friday 052: Chocolate-coated corn flakes

 

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I have a weakness for chocolate and, over the holidays, my husband totally spoiled me with the chocolate-y goodness of his childhood. The kitchen was his for the time being as he lovingly made chocolate desserts and sweets the same way his mum did when he was a boy. No wonder my blood sugar increased several notches after the holidays! Just kidding.

So here’s one: 

Corn flakes coated in  melted dark and white chocolates with brandy-soaked raisins. It’s fattening alright yet oh-so-tempting-and-oh-so-good! Pardon the quality of the photograph but I assure you it tastes much, much better than it looks here.

A very interesting note: The very mention of chocolate-corn flakes crispies brings added spring in my husband’s walk. I think it brought back memories of his childhood; the scent of the chocolate and vanilla transported him back to his mum’s kitchen and delicious cooking.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

From my kitchen to yours…

 

mouse on a champagne glass

 

H A P P Y       N E W     Y E A R!

Should your mouth be bigger than your stomach…

hamster and carrot

  may you have a chewing good time!

May 2011 be our best year ever.