Carven's Table

Marinating in progress I came across this recipe while reading other food blog , a dish that I've forgotten and enjoy eating it a lot - Assam Prawn(Assam Heh)/ Tamarind Fried Prawn. Somewhat, a very comforting childhood dish to me and I can't believe I've forgotten about it all these years. After glancing through the recipe, I realised how easy it is to make this dish and it tasted fantabulous. Ingredient 16no. Large Banana Prawn 4 tbsp Tamarind Pulp 8 tbsp Water 3 tsp Sugar 3/4 tsp Salt 5 tbsp Cooking Oil Method 1. Extract tamarind juice by adding water to tamarind pulp and start pressing or squeezing with hand. 2. Trim off pointy bit on prawn head with a scissor (you may choose to remove the heads if you prefer) then devein prawn by slitting the back and slowly pull out the urinal track. Rinse prawn then dry with paper towel. 3. Mix salt and sugar into tamarind juice. Then pour juice onto prawns and mix it with hand. Marinate for 20 minutes. (You may remov...

Recently discovered a new Dim Sum place on Albany Hwy, Vic Park. They open everyday for Dim Sum from 10:30am - 5:30pm, that make them slightly different from anyone else. They have Bubble Tea too!  Apart from serving Dim Sum, they also have a range of lunch dishes, noodles and rice. By adding more stuff on their menu, they also serve bubble tea. Interior  Yummy House Chinese Restaurant did put some effort in renovation and decoration. Warm light tone and dark brown colour tables + chairs, but nothing too fancy or plain. Although they said they are open for Dim Sum til 5:30pm, but when we were there, the restaurant have no sight of patrons and staff. However, staff appeared from no where to attend to us immediately. It was a sheer awkward moment as we are not used to staff providing butler service, especially in a Chinese restaurant. Straight from the steamed trolley, except for egg tart. Once we sat down, one of the staff served us hot tea and chilli oil, anoth...

Spring Espresso Been hearing a lot about Nekisse coffee from twitter. It is a reserve micro selection Ethiopian coffee, and it is part of Five Senses reserve range of the year. Many have said "if you love coffee, you should really try Nekisse." Now a normal 250g of coffee bean would only cost you around $10, not for Nekisse though, a bag of it could cost you $28. That being said, on a fine Wednesday night, Spring Espresso twitted "Tomorrow filter coffees: Tanzanian Blackburn Estate, Ethiopian Nekisse, and Brazil Monte Verde CoE Lot 21. Come get some!" and there I was sipping on Nekisse on Thursday. Spring Espresso is located at the Crossway Shopping Centre, Subiaco, just off Bagot Rd. With only a few comfy coach seating available in the cafe, Spring Espresso has a stream of local and regulars went in for coffee. Nekisse Micro Selection 2010 Upon entering, there were a standing blackboard written with 'todays single origin'. If you like specialty...

While restaurant along South Terrace in Fremantle were bustling with diners feast upon pasta and pizza, the rest of Freo is as quiet as if the earth just stop spinning. If not for the great ratings on Urbanspoon , I wouldn't have thought of dining in this hole-in-the-wall French restaurant on High Street. Hallway leading to the toilet, on the wall were newspaper and magazine clippings. French born owner and chef Frederic Verschoore spent years training and working in a 3 Michelin-star restaurant in France, then spent more than 10 years abroad in Hong-Kong and Japan. After all these years of training and working in city that never sleeps, he finally settled in our humble port city and opened up his own restaurant.     Dining hall  Great Mellie is a 40 seated small restaurant, comfortable sized clothed table, old-fashioned chairs, paintings from artists and a cave-like 3D structured wall (that reminds me of Djimbaran in Myaree, maybe they were using the same cont...

Italians has Spaghetti/Pasta as their staple and for Chinese noodles has become their essential staple. So much so that the Chinese are obsess in making all kinds of noodles, using different type of flour, making it into different shape and cooking it in different broth or serve them dry. In saying so, the dough can be cut into thin strips, hand pulled, hand rolled, extruded, peeled and kneaded. They do have a way to play with it and call it their specialty for that region. When the Chinese exported their people to South-east Asia and other country, these people (my ancestors and friends) started to come out with a more localised noodle dish, thus in Malaysia we've Pan Mee. A bowl of freshly made Pan Mee and condiments While Malaysian food is not hard to find here in Perth and almost every Asian restaurant serves noodle dish, but Pan Mee is one exceptional that I don't seems to find it anywhere in Perth, except Spencer Village Food Court (but that doesn't taste as aut...

Hearty soup to calm ones heart  Hearty, healthy, warm and fuzzy. Was trying this turkey & chicken chorizo from woolworths because it's simply cheaper than a normal chorizo. It wasn't that bad after all and it added great smokey paprika flavour into the soup. A simple chorizo and vege soup can be made quickly and easily. I chose the trickier way by boiling and simmering my own vege stock then blend it into a thick soup (no any sort of wastage here). As I like to eat soup with more texture, I then put in diced vege and legumes for a more filling dinner. Served with a warm crunchy garlic toast, what a contented dinner, it makes me feel good about myself for eating 10 serves of vegetables in 1 go!

oh-hai-yo-go-zai-e-maz-da No, this wasn't Japan, although it was with full house of black-headed South-East Asian, myself included. As familiar as it looks, this is indeed in the heart of Fremantle Market, hands down one of the best Ramen in Perth, even Kevin Rudd says so! I've known this place since uni years, been there for takeway takoyaki (occy balls) and bubble tea, but never their ramen. While I'm on a  ramen hunt , we've finally decided to try their ramen and went for grocery shopping as well on a fine sunday. Without knowing the ultra long wait to dine-in, we had to order the ramen in take-away plastic bowl and find ourselves a table at the yard of Fremantle market. It sucks because we don't have 1 hr just to queue for ramen that day, our ramen wasn't served in the infamous ramen's big bowl and we don't get to enjoy the buzz cramming with other ramen slurper. Char-siu Ramen  Authentic crockery aside, our ramen in a plastic bowl did lo...

Flipping it at North Freo I don't usually head up to the north-side of Freo as there aren't much to do, so much so that I only know Mojo's bar and Harvest Restaurant is around that area. And that day I've finally decided to "Flipside"! Staff getting slammed Flipside at North Freo has a team of young and energetic staff pumping out burger after burgers, all I heard was the sizzling from the grill, phone ringing asking for takeway and a constant gentle shout for pick ups. Decor was minimal, simple and effortless, with just a long community table serving dine-in patrons and 2 tables outside who fancy the chill. The rest of the space filled up with chairs/stools reserved for takeaway customers because the wait can be up to 20mins. Ciabatta roll as burger buns  With not much choices from the menu, I've got ourselves a Chilli-Ander Chicken burger ($12) , a BBQ Bacon & Cheese burger ($12) and a serve of Thick Cut Chips ($4.50) to bring home. Af...

It's always a bliss driving along Ardross Street in Applecross on a sunny day, especially when jacarandas are in their full bloom, those dreamy purple colour flower lining along the road, make up my day every time. After having discovered JACS and The Good Grocer on the strip, I've decided to discover other cafes serving this beautiful community and Cioccolato Espresso looks promising. We were there for arvo coffee session, although there wasn't many customer in the cafe, but we often see mums with groceries, mums with teenagers, and rich middle-aged with a puppy popping in for coffee to-go. As soon as we sat down, more and more stay-at-home mums came in for a cup of frappe and catch up with their girl friends about the day.  We were greeted warmly at the counter when we were having a look at their cakes slices which were sitting in the display fridge. We got ourselves a cup of flat white, cappuccino and an orange chai slice.  It was a small cafe with small tables...