Makan Places :Botak Jones - Where you can find cheap and authentic American Food!

As my heading suggests, I would really recommend Botak Jones to those of you who love American food and have a hearty appetite. The portion is really biggggg, with almost half a plate of cajun fries and a quarter of a plate of coleslaw with our orders of Cajun Chicken and Fish 'N Chips.

But I noticed that most people can't finish their fries and slaw.. Such a waste...me and Marky sat there looking at the cleaner uncle throw all these food away..

Imagine how many less fortunate people in the world without food and here we are wasting food...Maybe Botak Jones should reduce the portions abit or offer kids sized meals so that small eaters will not have to waste the food...

Okay think I digressed too much.. Here's the moment you've been waiting for...

*drums*

Picture Time!

How often do you see people serving malt vinegar and mustard at coffeeshops? Probably only here...

Cajun chicken - Really gooood...Although it looks hard, but it is really tender inside. The cajun fries are wonderful...But too much.. I tried my best to eat as much as I could but still, alot was wasted. Coleslaw is pretty good too and goes well with the rest of the stuff.


Fish 'N Chips - I find that this is not too bad, but a tad too hard for my liking.

Noodles :Aglio Olio with White Button Mushroom

Flu has decided to visit me this morning to make me feel sick the whole day...But since I'm lazy to do my work, I've decided to update my blog. Otherwise, Markie will start saying that my blog is coming to an end soon. Like my previous blogs. ARGHHHH.. Totally not supportive, next time don't cook nice food for you already. Humph!

Anyway, the food of the day is Aglio Olio.

An easy to make dish and an all time favourite. The basic ingredients are just spaghetti, olive oil, plenty of garlic and red pepper. Sounds easy right?

I've tried this dish many times and I think the best combination is still with white button mushroom. So, I fried this for a BBQ session with my Markie & the womenz. Comments were all pretty positive (although it was already cold), so here's my recipe for my version of aglio olio for you to try it out!

Aglio Olio with White Button Mushrooms









Ingredients:
1/2 a packet of Spaghetti/Linguine (The actual amt should be a little less than that)
2 packets of white button mushrooms, sliced into 2mm slices (Quite expensive @ approximately $3.95 each)
4 tbsp butter (Amt can be increased to suit your taste)
5 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, chopped finely
Salt and black pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes (I used finely chopped fresh red chillies)
Parsley for garnishing (It really adds to the taste too)

Method:
1. Cook pasta until al dente, about 8-10 minutes.

2. Add salt to the water while pasta is being cooked.

3. Drain pasta immediately into a colander when it is cooked and toss it abit to remove excess water. (Pasta should be placed under cold water only if you are making a salad to stop the cooking process)

4. Place 3 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil into a hot frying pan. Add 2 tsp of garlic when butter has melted and fry till fragrant.

5. Add button mushrooms and let them sit in the frying pan until bottom is caramelized.

6. Toss mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes. (You may want to add more butter or olive oil if you find the mushrooms very dry)

7. Add salt and pepper to taste. Dish the mushrooms out.

8. Add 3 tbsp of olive oil to hot pan. Then add the remaining garlic and chilli to fry till garlic is slightly browned.

9. Add in the cooked pasta and stir fry. At this point, add 1/2 of the sauteed mushrooms and some excess liquid to the pasta for more flavour.

10. Season your pasta with salt and pepper to taste.

11. Lastly, place the remaining mushrooms on top of the pasta and sprinkle parsley generously over the top.

Makan Places :Juju Hokkaido Hotpot

I'm finally back after a very long break.. Actually this post was supposed to be out long some time ago, if not for MARKY..you know what you did that day...=Þ

Okay..back to the topic...Juju Hokkaido Hotpot was introduced by the founder of Tao's Restaurant and having tried Tao's, we decided to give Juju a try...another reason was because we had a 20% discount voucher.. hehe

The food was pretty good and as the name of the restaurant suggests, they serve hotpots...The kombu soup base was light and refreshing while the other ingredients of the hotpot were very fresh. You can choose from the beef, fish, seafood or chicken set and this set meal includes appetizers, a small drink and dessert. All these for approximately $25 before tax (per pax).

First up, we were served a simple yet luscious braised egg with their own special sweet sauce, which I have no idea how to describe the taste. But it's really good.

Next, the sauces came in small little teapots and square dishes.

On the left: Sweet chilli sauce
Middle: Peanut sauce and some herb paste
Right: Japanese soya sauce

Our choice of cold soba came soon after the display of sauces, but I found the sauce rather salty for my liking and the noodles were too soft.

This was a plate of apparantly different dumplings which doesn't really taste very different to me. Don't know if its me or is it the dumplings =) The shot glass on the left contained minced chicken meat and a piece of celery was cleverly placed in it for customers to dig the chicken meat out to place it into the hotpot.

Here's our two main courses of the night. I ordered the fish set, which came with 3 types of fishes while Marky chose the seafood set. The meats were beautifully placed on steel and wooden "ships". This really made the food looks more appetizing. Anyway, there was a piping bag near the fish head which contained fish paste. The interesting thing was that we can just pipe the paste into the hotpot and when it is cooked, it will float to the top. The end reults were springy and yummy fish meat strips.

When we were almost half finished with our hotpot, there was this special icy plum drink which was served. I can tell you that this is really superb! Loved this drink. It's very cold and sour, with the right amount of sweetness. It was a good thing that Marky doesn't like plums, so guess wat.. I got both glasses of plum drink! Wahahaha Anyway, it is the smallest glass of plum drink that I have ever drunk. The size is almost like an elongated shot glass.

Here are the desserts that we ordered to end our meals.

From the left: Black glutinuous rice with a scoop of yam & fruits sago thingy

My verdict? I wouldn't mind bringing my parents there to eat! =)