The vegetable food vendor in my neighborhood

The vegetable food vendor in my neighborhood, he comes to you!

Fried Bananas in an Orange Caramel Desert

Orange Bananas Desert

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Here is a real quick and real easy dessert to cook up. All you need is some bananas
Oranges
flour
Butter
Brandy
Dark Sugar
Raw Sugar
Brandy
Ice cream or cream

Start by grating the zest of 2 oranges, then squeeze the juice outta them also.

Melt a great hunk of butter in a decent pan ( about 50 or 100 grams, I guess)

Lightly dust the bananas in the flour

Place bananas into pan for about 5 mins on a low heat.

Pour the sugar into the pan over the bananas ( about a handful each )

Allow the sugar to melt and then once it starts to caramelize ( you'll see it bubbling ) pour the orange juice into the pan along with the orange peel.

Allow the sauce to thicken - add a splash or too of some cooking brandy, not too early mind, you dont want to evaporate the alcohol all away...

It should take about 15 mins or so.

Add to a pan, pour sauce over top, add icecream to taste and enjoy.

NB : the maid or wife can clean the mess now.

Collecting coconuts

It was a slow day for my driver, so he and his mate climbed a tree outside my house to collect some coconuts.... hmmm, yummy.

Preparing the coconuts.....

Enjoying.......
The finished product!

Bandung - a W/E trip

Bandung is Indonesia's forth largest city, as such it tends to suffer from traffic and waste management problems (read - is dirty and gridlocked!) and therefore no longer deserves the previous nickname of "The paris of the East"

However, being only 2 hours or so from Jakarta, it is still a popular tourist spot. So i decided to visit last weekend, (and, coincidently, friend was there thur-sat on a staff trip from work). So we meet up Sat morning, and....... slept, mostly, that'll teach me not have have big nights out before going away on holidays!

You can fly there, catch a train or drive.... the drive goes through a lovely set of hills and volcanoes, called Puncak Pass, covered in tea plantations.

There is plenty of accommodation options to choose from, from Sheraton and Hyatts to backpacker guest houses but this w/e for some reason was quite busy, we found a slightly tired looking hotel, that may well have once been quite grand. It was ok.

That evening we got into the car to travel to a place called Kampung Daun, which is quite a famous place to eat Sudanese food (specialty of the area) I assumed that it was in town.... haha.... 1.5 hours later, car petrol gauage on empty (and service stations all closed for the evening ...:( ) we finally (10.00pm) arrived, fortunately we also did find an open petrol station.

The place is a collection of open air gazebos serving as diners tables with a dozen kitchens interspaced between streams and gardens.

Food was good, but nobody bothered to tell me that the Oxtail soup - meant soup, plus a plate of oxtail meat, rice and vegetables, so when that arrived plus the plate of Ribs I ordered i looked like a right greedy bastard.

After that drove back to town and visited 'Embassy' a night club that, as it turned out had DJ Naro (a reasonably well kown Indo DJ) and DJ Missil (French DJ) playing that night. :)

The next day had a bit of a sleep in - funny that! before checking out and travelling to a small mall that had been tarted up to look like a european street, called, strangely enough, Paris van Java ... some good specials on there and I managed to buy some new clothes, had lunch at Black Canyon - dining outside (Bandung is at a high altitude so the temperatures are very pleasant.)

Bandung is also famous for shopping, notably factory outlets for all sorts of name branded clothing, Guess, Pierre Cardin, Hugo Boss etc.

Again spent some money - but at less than $10 per item who's gonna complaign.

After this another travel to the Dago Hills north of the city, and overlooking the city. A coffee shop / art gallery was our destination Selasa Cafe. The coffee was very, very good.

The views were great - though a little overcast.

The art work was not really to my taste. They also do performances there and have a small amphitheatre. This one was called the suffering or something - apprently not supposed to take photos....

Anyway, all in all a nice place to visit, i'll head back there some time again.

a link to a better travel writer than I ... http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2726

Bachelors shopping trolley?

had a mate over yesterday arvo....we had to do a quick beer run since the one long neck in da fridge didnt last particularly long....waiting in the checkout que it sorta occured to me that the only thing missing in this trolley was a great big dinosaur sized lump of red meat!

whaadya think??

BTW - notice the token veggies....

living in the sticks or lack of pizza anger!

Fer goodness sake.

now i know i'm living in the sticks.well da outskirts of Jakarata that is, it pretty much is jakarta, tho officially i live in Tangerang not jakarta.most my indo friends laff when i tell them where i live in that they would consider travelling to the moon to be somewhat closer than my area.anyway - may nice houses, schools, streets and shops around here.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUT! it is saturday nite

i just rang the local pizza shop wanting a delivery!

but no, they are CLOSED! WTF? a pizza shop closed by 10pm on a Saturday Nite?

Whats the world coming too! ?

Indonesian Food Carts

Now one of the things that i miss abt bangkok is the easy availability of food on the streets (particularly moo ping (fried pork), being a muslim nation there aint much pork here! ) but anyway they have food carts that these guys move around much the same as bangkok.

Different times of day for different foods and each type of food has a different sound to attract you attention and so u know what they are selling, i found out not so long ago that the guy that screams out "ssssssssaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttaaaaaaaaaaaay" sells satay, funny really!

Anyway here he is...putra malam = night boy - i think that is not exactly polite more of a double meaning really, but i wasnt gonna ask him abt that - i just wanted a plate of chicken satay. unlike bangkok they dont precook them - they start out raw - so he has to fan the coals like buggery for about 10 minutes to cook it properly.beginning to look good.

u can get them wrapped in paper, but since this was out the front of my house i brought him a plate of mine (the maid will wash it anyway) now to make the sauce, lots of oil, some chilli, some other stuff....then i ordered some longton - glutinous rice cooked into mush inside a bananna leaf, he chopped it all up - satay and then a sprinkle of dried onion on top.

doesnt look so good with the flash, ah well too late cos i already scoffed them down, enjoying them on my front step.

2 Dinners - a cultural exchange

her food.....thems chicken feet! ugh! lucky i had got some western food for me ....fish and chips from the offshore....dont really look that good really!

so i added some pepper, salt vinegar and mayo

then it did taste good.

her food needed garnish too - not quite the same as mine