I'd like to confess that I'm no Ramen connoisseur. I'm not one to religiously scope out Ramen eateries and rave about their broth intensity or collagen factor. My palette is not accustomed to the pork-rich flavour of Tonkostsu, nor the full, complexity of Miso Ramen. But, nevertheless, I do love noodles of any sort and will willingly pursue any noodle restaurant to seek out some squiggly goodness. And when a Japanese restaurant by the name of Ippudo extends its branch out to the reasonably new Central Park Complex, you'll bet I'll be there in a heartbeat.

Westfield's Ippudo restaurant in its high-class food court is renowned for it's authentic, full-bodied Ramen. The restaurant in Central Park is located in the ground level Dining District, across the path from Ribs and Burgers, a chic cafe called Autolyse, and next door to the dessert-lover's paradise, Max Brenner. The interior space is not as big as the Westfield branch, but large enough for a comfy space that doesn't feel like you're one in a hundred hungry noodle-slurpers. And, unlike the Westfield flagship, there's little wait (if any at all), at least in the early months since its opening in early October.

It's an old wives tale that spicy food is good for sickness - naturally 'hot' foods like horseradish, wasabi and chilli are good remedies for when you're feeling a bit off or fluey. Likewise, it's also well known (especially in warm, humid places like Malaysia) that eating spicy food can help cool you down on hot days. Eating food like curries when you're sweltering in 30 degree plus heat makes you sweat, which the body's cooling mechanism. Funny, isn't it?

Earlier this year I went on a once in a lifetime trip to Japan on the JENESYS 2.0 programme (to read all about it on my first post click here). Part of this involved a trip to regional Japan to experience every day life outside of the bustling, tourist-strewn hub of Tokyo, to spend time with a host family in Japan suburbia. 

When you travel, you experience a city from a different perspective to the locals. Of course, this is in part because you are a tourist, and no matter how hard you dig you will always be a tourist. But this is also because more often than not, you will stay where it is most convenient, where you will be able to travel easily and where you can make the most of your holiday time - whether this be near a popular transport centre or in the middle of the city. You never really get to live like the locals. 

Our regional stay enabled us to do just that - spend our time with Japanese locals, take part in traditional cultural activities and eat authentic home-cooked Japanese food. You could be forgiven for thinking it's all about Tempura, Sushi and Ramen here. 

I must confess that prior to beginning the journey of this recipe, I had a slight aversion to (or rather, fear of) sponge cakes, for two main reasons.

Reason number 1: The recipe requires the whipping of egg whites. Not that I am scared of this, but rather the lack of a stand-mixer in my kitchen requires a labour of love and 10 minutes of semi-vigorous physical activity to achieve glossy, stiff-peaked whites.

Reason number 2: It's hard to predict how successfully the cake will turn out, as there are a number of variables that could cause it to go downhill. For example, overbeating the egg, beating too much air out of the mixture or having a cake that disappointingly deflates upon taking out of the oven. I say this because the latter happened to me the last time I attempted a sponge to make lamingtons. I later realised I hadn't left it in the oven long enough to rise and become stable.

Apologies for the unusually long hiatus between this post and my last, I've been extremely busy these past few weeks with exams the oh-so-close-but-so-far end of the school term. It's funny how time passes by so quickly when you're busy.

Last Friday it was my birthday, YAY! And because it was my birthday I was was granted the powerful gift of being able choose wherever I wanted to go for my birthday meal. Now usually I'd be scrambling the wide world of food blogs for somewhere a bit special to go, but it being the beginning of exam block I didn't exactly have much free time to spend oogling over drool-worthy deliciousness. Last year we went to Sokyo for my birthday, and given our family's penchant for anything Japanese Mum piped up one day that we should visit Sake Restaurant in The Rocks.

There are a lot of choices to make when you eat out at an Italian restaurant. Should you order pizza, or pasta? A salad to cut through the carbs, or perhaps some entrees to start? Do you like your pizza with a thin or thick crust? Pineapple on top?

You know those recipes that manage to be fool-proof, fail-safe and crowd-pleasers all at once? The kind that you can whip up with your eyes closed on demand, with whatever ingredients you can manage to find in your fridge? Those recipes fall into two categories, savoury or sweet. While the savoury recipes tend to be a little bit easier to master because they rely largely on taste and less on exact measurements, there are few sweet recipes that are just as easy and simple. Crumble is one of those recipes I turn to when in need of a dessert fix but can't be bothered to grease and line a cake tin and break out those handheld electric beaters. It's easy to adapt to any kind of fruit, and requires little preparation or washing up.

Earlier this year in March I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to travel to Japan as participant in the Japanese Government's JENESYS 2.0 Programme. The acronym JENESYS stands for Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths, with JENESYS 2.0 being the second stage of the project. The project is a youth exchange programme promoting 'Cool Japan' to 'revitalise the Japanese economy' through the introduction of Japan's attractions to foreign tourists to promote 'international understanding'. 

The programme I was invited on consisted of a group of around 250 youths from countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, East Timor and New Zealand. We embarked on a whirlwind 10 day trip to Japan, taking part in sightseeing trips for a few days before dividing into international subgroups of around 40 to travel to an allocated area of regional Japan - Kagoshima, Yamagata, Chiba, Shizuoka, Kochi, Fukushima, Shimane, Nagano and Ibaraki. In these regional areas we got the chance to experience authentic cultural experience and interact with the locals, and some of us were lucky enough to go on home or farm stays for a night with a host family. 

Among all the beautiful sights of Japan and its lesser known regional cities, the trip was not only a culturally gratifying and unforgettable experience but we also got to open our mouths and tummies to the traditional, famous and some of the lesser known delicacies of Japan.



Let's start with dessert first. Specifically, ice cream. Available from a vending machine. Yes, if you've been to Japan before you would have seen these special vending machines nestled on the side of the footpath, in parks or near temples, dedicated solely to ice cream. It's a wonder how they stay so cold when it might be 30 degrees plus outside, but they do thanks to advanced Japanese technology. The flavours are much different to those in Australia - think  strawberry and matcha flavoured cornetto-style cones, psychedelic swirls in bright playful colours and ice cream sandwiched inside crunchy kiddy-style rectangular cones. Most sell different varieties of ice creams, so each time you might be surprised.


There were two vending machines in the lobby of our hotel, the Hotel New Otani Makuhari on the outskirts of Tokyo. One sold snack and meals (cup noodles or packet waffles, anyone?) and the other was for dessert! The first night, exhausted from the 9 hour flight from Sydney at an hour I'm sure was far too late for dessert, I went down to treat myself to dessert. As well as this Lady Borden ice cream, it also sold cute Haagen Dazs ice cream cups and ice cream sandwiches and cute chocolate coated ice cream drops. This particular ice cream was vanilla flavoured, coated in chocolate and almonds much like an almond Magnum. The ice cream inside was much more yellow than normal vanilla ice cream, probably due to the different variety of milk used, but it tasted so good.


Buffet breakfasts were the way we began every day at the hotel, with dishes that included scrambled eggs, omelets, bacon, vegetables, various breads and pastries, a DIY Japanese salad bar, fruit and yoghurt and even corn flakes! From day to day there were a few swaps here and there, but I have to admit that by the end I was quite sick of buffets.


 The salad bar included the mandatory salad leaves and additions such as cucumber, onion and corn, but other interesting additions included seaweed (wakame), radish and this colourful and chewy squiggly food that was labelled 'seaweed'. How interesting!



The bread section tickled my fancy. As well as toast (sadly not the thick-cut kind that I love in Japan), croissants and danishes there were milk buns, red bean buns and the ubiquitous melon pan - a green marbled, real melon flavoured sweet bread. I'm not kidding, it tasted so much like melon!!


One morning I was overjoyed to find ratatouille among the offerings as well as tater tots! 



What would a visit to Japan be without an obento? This obento was what we received on our first full day of the programme during orientation. It came packed in a beautiful engraved plastic box that opened to reveal a sight that made the mouth drool. One side was packed with perfectly cooked short grain rice sprinkled with sesame and golden crunchy flakes. The other had an artful array of bits and pieces (clockwise from top left): chicken katsu with sauce in a separate bottle, tomato flavoured dried scallops, tamago (egg omelet), a piece of salted fish, pork balls, fish cake, steamed taro and an unami mix of little white dots and seaweed. Oishii (delicious)!!! This is why I live for Japanese food. 



Ningyo-yaki is a traditional Japanese street-side sweet snack made from a batter cooked in specially moulded casts filled with red bean (anko) paste. In Japanese, the name Ningyo-yaki literally translates to 'fried dolls' , which seems fitting for such a cute food. Upon visitng Senso-ji in Asakusa, walking along Nakamise-dori, we were given time to wander around the souvenir shops and I stumbled upon this stall and was mesmerised by the men cooking these over hot coals. They were so cute, with one of the shapes replicating the huge lantern that hangs inside the temple (Asakusa Kaminarimon) and another of the temples gates (chochin). I love red bean, and these tiny, mini waffle-like cakes were the perfect traditional Japanese treat.




These donuts were also bought just outside the temple, called Agemanju. They were 100-150 yen each, with flavours ranging from green tea to red bean to sweet potato. Sold individually and run by locals, these were worth coming specially to Asakusa for, deep fried balls of goodness (for more about them see my post here). These were green tea (left) and black sesame flavoured (right, with a red bean filling). Yummmm.




Dinners on the programme were absolute food heaven (well, most of them anyway). A lot of the time we were taken to restaurants that buffets because of the wide dietary requirements of such a large group, and the best one was at a place called Carne Station in Ginza. This was a buffet, BBQ meat restaurant where we were able to help ourselves to a spread of hot food and raw meats, which we took back to our tables to grill on a hot plate as we wanted to.


The raw meat and seafood were plentiful - marinated chicken, wafer-thin strips of fatty beef and pork, crab legs, mussels, fish, calamari and squid, octopus, as well as sliced sweet potato, cabbage, pumpkin and onion. Aside from the meat and hot buffet was a huge range of salad options - vermicelli, seaweed, potato and past salad, tofu, beansprouts, noodle salads.... AND a separate cake cabinet full of vanilla, strawberry and matcha cheesecake, an ice cream station and jelly and fruit.



And finally a more traditional Japanese dinner. This was on our first night, at a restaurant called Hana No Mai in Chiba, a traditional restaurant with screen walls and tatami mats with drop-down floors. We were all so overcome with joy and exhaustion that we dove in to this stunning meal - a cold shredded chicken-style main mixed with mayonnaise and wholegrain mustard, a scoop of potato salad, some green salad, rice, fresh tuna sashimi, a bamboo and bean side dish and nourishing clear soup. Clean and wholesome, the perfect example of Japanese food.

Aaaand so there are a lot more photos I'd like to share with you but I think I'll save them for another post. Food overload. In case you are still drooling and like to continue drooling, check out some more of my Japan posts here:
Ichiran Ramen, Tokyo
Bills, Yokohama
Japanese Sweets and Street Food

Enjoy!

So do you want to know another reason why I love Asian bakeries? I said in my first post here that it's because there is a myriad of weird and wonderful creations that you can find in them, sort of like a bakery museum!

One of the other things I love about Asian (Chinese) Bakeries is their cheep and cheerful fare and how you'll be hard pressed to find a bakery that is exactly the same as another. Each has their own 'feel' to their baked goods - no two Bo Lo Bao taste the same, no two Dan Tarts have the same texture. Each bakery has it's own take on the sweet and savoury classics.

My love for cooking began when I started baking in the kitchen. I began by making simple things - chocolate chip cookies, lime and coconut loaf, cupcakes and muffins. Then I started becoming more adventurous with homemade pastry, tarts, pies, biscotti and this cheesecake.

If you were to ask me what my favourite Italian food was, I wouldn't be able to answer you. I absolutely love Italian food, whether it be pasta, pizza, arancini, pane (bread) or any of the various antipasto delicacies. Actually, that's a lie.... I would probably say Gelato, but that is another type of food that deserves its very own category...

But of all Italian food, it would be extremely hard to me to choose just one that I adore. It's good eating out at Italian restaurants with a big family because you're always guaranteed to order a wide range of meals, which means that I hardly ever miss out on anything that I love. Must orders whenever we eat Italian are always a seafood dish of some sort, whether it be a Spaghetti Marinara or a Frutti di Mare pizza, most of the time accompanied by a lovely parmesan and rucola salad and crunchy, aromatic garlic bread.

I must make a confession. I will never stop loving hot chocolate. Whether it's the powdered mix stirred into a hot mug of freshly heated (ahem..microwaved) milk, or an $8 cup of pure, decadent, real hot chocolate, give me a hot cup flavoured with the milky, dreamy creaminess that is chocolate and I'm a happy girl. Extra kudos for an airy layer of froth on top.




Wikipedia defines a hot chocolate as a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar, and essentially, that is exactly what it is. Aficionados claim the inferior version is made from powdered chocolate, better known as drinking chocolate, which is not as sweet nor as rich as pure melted chocolate. Some places serve it with marshmallows on the side, others with a generous slathering of chocolate syrup draped across the sides of the cup, and the drink is hardly restricted to consumption at just one meal. Hot chocolate may be drunk anywhere, anytime.

Irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ) ! That's a phrase you've probably heard often when eating at a Japanese restaurant, shouted above the sounds of the kitchen and buzz of diners by single or multiple sushi chefs as new patrons enter through the door. It means 'welcome', but what you probably didn't know is that it's also common for shop employees in Japan to greet customers with the same phrase, which is what we experienced on holiday there last year. It isn't always expected and welcoming, though, - on many occasions we witnessed retailers saying (or sometimes even shouting) it spontaneously while patrolling the aisles of their shops, perhaps to remind customers that they are there to help. But only in Japan.


Enter Goshu Ramen Tei, a hole-in-the-wall Japanese ramen joint up near the Wynyard Park end of Wynyard Station (York St exit) in the heart of Sydney. You don't hear Irasshimase upon entering (most of the seating is outside), but it does have that authentic Japanese ramen stall-style feel. On this busy weekday, it's lunchtime and we notice that all the tables are occupied, full of both small and larger groups of predominantly office workers chowing into comforting bowls of homey Japanese food. Next door to this eatery is another aptly named noodle restaurant called Ramen Condor, and you may be forgiven for mistaking one for the other. Today, however, it seems that Goshu Ramen Tei is the more popular of the two.

Nestled in amongst the outlet and furniture shops in the homemaker/industrial hub of Alexandria sits The Grounds of Alexandria, famous for it's innovative 'ground roots' approach to food. You know you're near when you begin to hear the hustle and bustle of crowds and begin to find it hard to find parking - on the weekends the queue for a table may last up to an hour or more .


But if you do find yourself in this predicament, don't worry too much. Outside the main cafe you'll be left wonder The Grounds, an expansive, open outdoor area that includes a courtyard, herb beds, a pig and chicken pen and on the weekends is home to The Grounds Markets where you can buy homemade bread, pastries, coffee, flowers and other edible knick-knacks that are all made on site. Wandering past and gawking at all the beautiful stalls is sure to provide a fun and unique experience that will pass the time and distract you from the wait in no time.

In America the homemade pie seems to be the standard dessert staple of every household. Americans love their pie - whether it be blueberry, key lime, chocolate cream, pecan, or even varieties like pumpkin that would seem a little unusual to us Australians. To add to this fascination there are even multiple varieties of pie crust that one can conjure: double or single crust, sour cream crust, graham cracker crust, flaky or a short, buttery crust....

But nothing says pie like the humble homemade Apple Pie. Though popularly baked in Autumn when the leaves turn golden and start falling off their branches, apple pie to me is what pie is all about. A golden, flaky, butter-laden crust, filled to the brim with sweet, soft chunks of disintegrated apple flavoured with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, eaten with scoops of creamy vanilla ice cream. The crunch and the sloppiness, the hot and the cold.... the ultra perfect homemade dessert.

That 's not to say making a pie at home is easy. In fact, it requires a small amount of skill if you choose to make your own pie crust from scratch. That's not to say you shouldn't make a pie using store-bought pastry - it's great for time-poor home cooks, and we use it often - but it just wouldn't be the same if you wanted a true, real deal homemade pie. And there's just so much satisfaction that comes with making your own pastry dough; you know exactly what goes into it and have the pleasure of rolling and lining the pie dish with a pie crust that you can feel proud of having made all by yourself!



I've been wanting to make my very own pie, crust and all, for a very long time. This is because part of me was always afraid the pastry wouldn't turn out right, and part of me just didn't really feel like going to all the effort to make a whole pie. Up until now.



Part of what persuaded me to attempt this feat was the simplicity of the pastry in this recipe from Curtis Stone, which I stumbled upon in an issue of delicious magazine. The pastry consisted of just plain flour, butter, iced water and a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar, whizzed together to form a loose dough and then rested in the fridge. I followed my own recipe for the filling, in which pieces of Granny Smith Apple were cooked on the stovetop with spices, sugar and water until just tender.



I have to admit that the longer the resting time for the dough, the the easier it was to work with and use to line the pie dish. After a second chilling, the slightly cooled filling was tumbled on top and sealed with another layer of pastry, then crimped and shaped around the edge and slit on top to allow steam to escape. A brushing of milk and sprinkling of raw sugar was all that was needed before popping in the oven to cook for just over an hour.

What came out of the oven was a completely transformed dessert, golden on top and with a crispy, flaky crust. It retained its heat for a long time after being taken out, and so didn't need reheating at the time of eating. Cutting into the buttery layered crust produced a satisfying *crunch* sound, although the dish wasn't greased well enough so the crust was quite resistant in coming out when we tried cutting it up into generous pieces. What resulted was a mess of a piece of pie, a somewhat rustic, deconstructed version that still tasted absolutely divine (albeit a little bit messy and crumbly).






Recipe
Pastry from What's for Dinner? by Curtis Stone; filling an original recipe.
Makes one large 24 cm pie.

Ingredients:

Pastry:

• 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 250g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1/2 cup iced water