May 2013 - Page 2 of 2 - Eat Your Broccoli!

May 6, 2013

Forest Lawn Bakery

I found this little gem while shopping at Lucky Supermarket next door. I’m really used to visiting Chinese bakeries with all the predictable Chinese favorites. I suspect, this bakery caters to Vietnamese and Filipinos. They had an assortment of western bread, cookies, pastries and cake. But they also had various sweet rice desserts, and cassava cake. My friend was so happy to find a rice cake that she hadn’t eaten since childhood. They also had the Vietnamese equivalent of lo bok go, steamed daikon cake.

May 6, 2013

Indonesian Kitchen

I’m on a mission to try all the southeast Asian restaurants in town. Well, mostly the Malaysian and Indonesian ones. Indonesian Kitchen is a small family run restaurant located on the ethically diverse International Avenue. Not much to look at from the outside, but the interior is warmly decorated. There are also shelves of crafts from Indonesia and a small selection of dry groceries. If I were more familiar with Indonesian cooking, I would have picked up some.

We started with the fried cassava. So good. Think of it as a spicy french fry. The chicken curry was up next. It was pretty average; I definitely expected more of a flavor hit. The mie goreng satisfied my craving for carbs after climbing. It was slightly sweet, which I was also craving. The shrimp chips and fried egg were a nice touch. Surprisingly, the tempeh was my favorite dish. Tempeh is a fermented soy product. I’ve cooked it before, and found the taste a little hard to swallow. But this version tasted good and combined with the sambal (chilli) sauce, was very tasty.

Worth a return visit, to try some of the other dishes.

Singkong Goreng Fried cassava lightly spiced — Singkong Goreng
Fried cassava lightly spiced

Kari Ayam Indonesian curry chicken — Kari Ayam
Indonesian curry chicken

Mie Goreng Chicken andshrimp fried noodles served with Krupuk and fried egg — Mie Goreng
Chicken and shrimp fried noodles served with Krupuk and fried egg

Sambal Goreng Tempeh Tempeh sauteed with sambal sauce — Sambal Goreng Tempeh
Tempeh sauteed with sambal sauce

May 5, 2013

Cassava Cake

Today’s foray to Indonesian Kitchen reminded me of the great taste of cassava. Cassava is a starchy vegetable that is used as food in a lot of Asian and African countries. It’s used a lot in subsistence farming. There is one ironic thing about this tuber. It is toxic to humans because it contains cyanide. There are two varieties, sweet and bitter. I assume they only sell the sweet variety in the grocery store. It requires proper processing techniques to be safe to eat. With sweet cassava, peel off all the skin (just the white flesh showing), cut off any dark streaks, grate and cook. Most of the poison is in the skin. The bitter variety, apparently has to be soaked for days in water or fermented underground. Then cooked really well. Processed, it is commonly known as tapioca. I usually dislike processed foods, but I appreciate it needs to be processed to be made safe for human consumption.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/foodsafetynetwork/cassava

I’ve modified the recipe below, by substituting the evaporated milk with water, adding some unsweetened shredded coconut, a dash of vanilla extract, and a couple tablespoons of sugar. I’m pretty sure I used around four cups of cassava – I didn’t measure, it was two large tubers. It’s surprisingly tasty, with the rich taste of coconut and a nice caramelized flavour.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cassava-cake/

May 5, 2013

Mimo

One area of town that I should explore more is International Avenue. There is a diverse range of food culture represented there, one of which is Portuguese. I’ve had Portuguese food once before; when I had a salt cod casserole. It was delicious.

Mimo is a family run place, for over 29 years. Mom is the chef and the daughters are servers and hostesses. We had a large party so we got to sample a few dishes. I found the flaming sausage quite entertaining. It was homemade; tasted smoky and spicy at the same time. I also had a nibble of the grilled squid which was tasty. My main dish was the paella and what a paella it was. Lobster, crab, shrimp, mussel and clam served in the shell. Also a braised chicken leg, squid and pieces of beef served on top of flavorful, buttery rice. I had enough to take home.

Our server was one of the daughters and she gave us a history of how the restaurant came to be along with memories of a thriving Portuguese community in what is now Little Saigon Mall. She was astute enough to notice that one of her guests left the chicken leg uneaten on her plate. It was uncooked in the middle. Another one of our guests had undercooked chicken as well. She offered to cover everyone’s dessert which I thought was really nice.

The dessert was good. I preferred the passion fruit pudding over the orange creme caramel. Only because the pudding was less sweet. Life would be complete if only I could find some Portuguese egg tarts. According to our server, best head to Edmonton.

May 1, 2013

Lazy Monkey

I’m always looking for new things to try. I am very unfamiliar with Taiwanese food so I went to satisfy my curiousity. Unfortunately, I did not have a photo taking device, so a description would have to do.

Lazy Monkey is a tiny, family run cafe. It looks like a place where Asian high school kids hang out to do their homework. Well, they were doing just that and Sir Winston Churchill is across the road. If you like bubble tea, this is the place for you. Being neither a high schooler nor a bubble tea lover, my friend and I sampled the regular courses.

I just had to try the chicken hearts. They came broiled, six to a skewer, with a light dusting of salt and pepper and a subtle taste of five spice. Who ever thought chicken hearts could be tasty. Next time will have to try the gizzards.

My friend had the egg wrap with curry rice. The curry reminded me of Japanese style curry. It was a good foil for the hearty serving of rice and egg.

I had the Hakka style pork. The tender pork slices were served over rice with a black bean style sauce. The pork was nicely salted and seasoned. There also was a hard boiled tea egg on the side. It was a substantial meal for lunch. Our main courses were served in takeout containers which I found a bit odd.

They had some rather interesting things on the menu, such as coconut thick toast. With vanilla ice cream. I’m trying to figure out if that is a dessert or snack item. I’d like to come back for the salted fish and curry casserole.