The Bubble bar

I picked up aLeaflet at one my local chinese supermarkets, It was about the bubble bar - I love bubble drinks - and decided to visit it as it is 500 yards from my home (no excuse not to go is there??)

The bar is up some stairs, just above the red chilli restaurant, a brilliant northern cuisine chinese. It is a small place, but well lit and fresh, modern and clean looking.great combinations of colours make it pleasant. The background music is not too loud either.

I had a look at the bubble drink menu, which is rather extensive, and I opted without hesitation for the Durian bubble (see below). It is the first bar I can indulge in my durian obsession sins....

For those who don't know about bubble drinks, they are beverages made with milk or soya, either with tea or fruits, served with tapioca black pearls, gelatinous balls of the size of a marble (hence the mega size for the straw). The drink was perfect and looking further on the menu, I realise there was some great common vietnamese snacks/food, bahn mi and pho... How could I resist?? I had a pho, freshly prepared in front of me like it should be. Possibly not as tasty as Marjolaine's, but I suspect that's asking for too much. It was nevertheless very healthy and tasty. I had not planned to eat in the bar, I just got very excited about the food offered there...

Being of french origin, I had to finish the meal on a cafe, and o joy, I could get a vietnamese coffee!

At the moment there is an offer I was told by the owner, and I got a n extra frozen yoghurt - I was already full by then though.

The bar is an excellent alternative for a healthy lunch or for hanging out for all the other cafe places, since it has the great advantage to close at 9pm - two hours after the others....

So thumbs up for this little bar that offers something new in town!

New York day 1 - Vietnamese theme

On the first evening, back from Central Park to our hotel, we went to a small Vietnamese restaurant, in upper Manhattan, that was on our way, nothing worthy of a report I'm afraid (I think the restaurant was called Saigon, but I don't particularly want to remember it.. not very vietnamese really):

I suppose we were in the mood for Vietnamese food as we'd talked about a trip to Vietnam in the near future whilst on the plane.

Anyway,the next day we aimed at Little Italy and Chinatown after a walk on Broadway to hunt breakfast.... The weather was not very promissing: dark and rainy....

We started in Canal Street up Mulberry Street, in Little Italy. We did not fancy stopping at a restaurant in Little Italy as it seemed a bit too touristy to be trusted - and to be honest, after having been in Italy, I tend to avoid Italian resturants in other countries, It's never as god as the real McCoy I'm afraid...-

Anyway, the quarter was lovely with restaurants in the 'Lady and the Tramp' style.
Some Delis attracted my attention though with a great selection of Ialian products, homemade cheese and pasta. (Ah, the Deli theme seemed to appear rather early!)

Then we moved onto Chinatown, which we loved as it was so lively and busy, food everywhere!
We started watching carefully though as we were hunting for the Bahn Me Saigon, highly recommended by Mycookinghut.
We found it, a tiny little narrow shop with the Bahn Me counter at the back! We had our food radar on so we found it quite easily!

We walked to the park, where there was quite a few people, found a bench and started eating our foodie treasure. It started raining, but equipped with our umbrellas, we were only reasonnably getting wet, totally absorbed in a vietnamese food vortex: the Bahn me was as great as Mycookinghut promised!. By the time we looked around us, it was pouring so hard that everybody else had vanished from the park. It was quite funny, we stayed there in a sort of 'Hamlet' moment...

The make-do Phở (Vietnamese noodle soup)

I was talking to @lovingpho's and looking a his great website the other day, as was already thinking of the trip to Vietnam I am planning for the end of the year. I sent lovingpho's address to my friend Marjolaine (see previous posts there, there and there) who in turn sent me her recipe and encouraged me to make my first Phở. Impatient, and missing some of the ingredients, I decided to proceed nevertheless.

So my Phở is definitely not authentic, but was surely tasty. And it took no time to prepare.

Here are Marjolaine's instructions for a quick Phở soup:
Ingredients:
- rice noodles
- Beef slices
- stock (beef used if sliced beef used)
- nước mắm
- ginger
- star anise
- chinese 5 spice
- slices of red chillis
- lime
- ngò gai (culantro, or long coriander)
- Thai basil
- bean sprouts

Heat the beef stock with the spices, ginger, sliced onion and star anise.

In a bowl, place the chilli, herbes, beensprouts, lime, noodles and beef slices. Pour the stock on top and serve.

NOW. I ran out of nước mắm (but I still have some thai fish sauce. not quite the same though. they taste very different..) did not have beef slices, bean sprouts or thai basil, I had cilantro but not culantro, and I had rice flakes only as I also ran out of rice noodle.
BUT, it was lunchtime and I was hungry so decided to go ahead anyway. So here is my heretic alternative:

I used some chicken stock I had, in it I threw finely sliced shallot, 1 star anise, a pinch of chinese 5 spice and some rice flakes (they are flat square type noodles see in the next photos), and the ginger chopped .

In a bowl I prepared: the cilantro (coriander leaves), lime juice, diagonal slices of a bird'seye chilli

I used the vietnamese sausage I had in the fridge:

I cut slices in dice, but with hindsight I should have cut long thin strips.

Then I poured the stock mix on top of the ingredients...

Like for thai food, one of the big secret is the right balance between the fish sauce and the lime (adjust). The soup was great for a speed lunch, but I can't wait to make a proper one, as the flavour with the indicated ingredients will be more delicate of course. I already have quite a lot of the ingredients because I often cook Asian food, but I guess it demands some specialist fresh ingredients, and in the UK, even if it is easy to find them in chinatown (ahem, I live next door from it), in this recession time, some people might find it a bit costly to make.

I am looking forward to taste the original vertsion during my trip in Vietnam, can't wait!

Source: Marjolaine's recipe + my own heretic modifications

Sweet and sour prawns

This is a brilliant recipe given to me by Marjolaine, whom I thank very much for it.

Definitely easy, tasty and fast to prepare.

Ingredients:
- 1 Thumb of finely chopped fresh ginger
- 1 finely chopped clove of garlic
- 1 finely chopped small onion
- a dash of ketchup (or tomato sauce+sugar)
- chili paste
- Prawns (shelled and de-veined)

Shallow fry them the ginger, garlic and onion in vegetable oil, add some ketchup and chili paste, mix well and add the prawns, mix the cook with a lid for 5 minutes, check that the prawns are cooked, but still crunchy.

How's that for a tasty recipe! enjoy with a bowl of steamed, boiled rice or even better, coconut rice will be great with it!, and a pot of jasmine tea to drink with it

I cook king prawns simply with butter and garlic sometimes, another successful and quick dish:

Source: Recipe and first photo courtesy of Marjolaine

Vietnamese spring rolls

One of the dishes I missed terribly when I first arrived in Britain was the Vietnamese spring rolls (also sometimes called summer rolls in English). You can find them everywhere in France. Most of the Chinese restaurants serve Vietnamese food over there.
So When I saw spring rolls on the menu of a Chinese restaurant in England I gladly ordered them; however I was in for a huge disappointment as I ended up with deep fried vegetable filled chinese rolls. Horror!! So there, I decided to make my own..
The other thing I miss is the Vietnamese nems, but these are deep fried so I won't be making them since I can't stand deep frying smells in my dear kitchen (which has no window)...

It's a healthy, fun, and tasty starter. You can get the guests to roll their own for fun if they have never tasted them before, They'll love that! And you don't need to cook anything, which is the super bonus. You can have them as a starter or as a main...

You will need:
Vietnamese rice paper

You will need for the filling:
- Prawns (pre-cooked and de-veined)
- Optional: dried Chinese Black mushrooms that you will have soaked earlier - I personally prefer without
- crystal noodles (also called vermicelli) that you will have soaked in warm water for 20 min.
- beansprouts (if you have time, cut the dry ends)
- lettuce leaves
- grated carrots
- fresh mint

You will need for the presentation and to eat with it
- more lettuce leaves and mint

For the dipping sauce:
- 1 tablespoon Nuoc Mam (the Vietnamese fish sauce, very different from the Thai one)
- 2 tablespoon lime
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- crushed peanuts
- a little bit of finely chopped garlic
- a little bit of finely chopped red chili
- some grated carrots for presentation

Dip the rice paper individually for 5 second in a plate of warm water. in another plate, fill on one side of the rice cake and as a line with: lettuce leaf, then mushrooms, noodles, 2 leaves of mint, beansprouts, and a bit of grated carrot; a bit further and parallel (in the middle of the rice paper in fact), place 2 prawns.
Start rolling from the filling (not the prawn side) side of the rice pape, roll tight, and when you reach the prawns. fold the sides of the cake perpendicular to the filling lines. When you have finished rolling, you'll notice that the roll stays in place since the rice cake is a little sticky.
Put aside and roll the next one.

Be careful when you roll as the filling (especially the beansprouts if they are fresh) can tear the rice cake as it is a little fragile. Make sure you don't dip the rice cake too long or it will become too brittle.

I did not take photos of how I rolled them, so you can see the live action in a video I found on youtube (In french but who cares, you don't need the sound).

Serve the rolls with the green leaves and the dipping sauce (just mix the ingredients).

Et voila, it's fresh and lovely, and easy to put in the bento or bring to work for a healthy tasty lunch!

The ones on the picture I made with some cooked chicken instead of shrimp for a friend who can't eat seafood, but it's honestly not as good!

I am expecting some great comments from Marjolaine to improve the recipe: she's a champion of Vietnamese spring rolls according to a gourmet spy friend of mine...

Source: many + my own experimentation with them...