Proper food at Turtle Point.
After a few days into our island holidays we switched over to Gili Meno, the smaller and more quiet sister of Trawangan. Our resort there, the Mahamaya, was a beautiful and small boutique hotel with a wonderful reef for snorkelling just in front.
In the evening they did setup tables at the beach for people to have some food in a nice setting without booking these weird staged romantic dinners you’ll often get in places like this and today they had fresh grilled fish as a special. Our exceptionally friendly and helpful waiter for the evening helped us choosing the right fish, which turned out to be a humongous red snapper. It was delicious and finally some proper local style food. The bbq fish was very meaty and juicy and was covered with a flavourful mix of garlic, cilantro and fragrant fruity and mildly spicy chilli. I just wished the heat would have kicked in a bit stronger.
Fresh seafood straight off the boat, stunning surroundings and outstanding service from all staff made this a great start into the second half of our holidays. I miss this place, terima kasih.
Mahamaya Boutique Resort
Turtle Point
West Nusa Tenggara
West Gili Meno – Lombok
Indonesia
Tel: +62 888 7155 828
http://www.mahamaya.co/
After a couple of days on Trawangan we figured it’s quite tough to get real Indonesian food down here – maybe apart from the nightmarket – and therefore didn’t feel guilty going for some Italian tonight. I found the chain of ‘Trattoria Cucina Italiana’ on the internet and as it was also ridiculously close to our hotel and we were exhausted from all that sunbathing we came here for dinner.
This year’s holidays brought us to beautiful Gili and our first stop was Trawangan Island. Down the beach from our hotel was ‘The Pearl Beach Lounge’ which we decided to have lunch today.
For starters I had a chilled ‘Garlic Cucumber Soup‘ which was tasty and super refreshing, perfect for a hot day like this but also quite sharp from the huge amounts of raw garlic which gave me severe dragon breath and made my stomach growl for a little while after.
Fantastically tasty and salty were also their ‘Waterspinach Feta Cheese Rolls‘ that reminded me of greek spanakopita and worked pretty well together with the grilled pepper dip that gave it a fruity contrast.
We also had their ‘Agedashi Tofu‘ which was kind of boring compared to others that I had and a big slice of ‘Wagyu‘ that had a nice nutty flavour but was nearly too buttery to eat too much of and sadly quite chewy as well. Last but not least we had one of their special spicy makis with prawn that I forgot the name of. The taste wasn’t bad but completely different to any other maki I had before as it was rolled in chilli flakes and topped with a lot of thinly sliced and flame touched sharpish onions. Not bad, not bad at all.
It was meat o’clock and so we headed for Tanjong Pagar, ‘Korean BBQ‘ heaven. We ordered the ‘Beef Set‘ at ‘Manbok Galbi’ which was massive and for only S$85 more than reasonable. All the cuts were tasty but my favourite by far was the wine marinated short rib which had the richest flavours of all. The sirloin was a bit streaky and chunky tonight but the rest of the meats were lean and tender. I also liked their free flow appetisers especially the strong fermented tasting kimchi and the onion salad. As always we added the ‘Kimchi-Jeon‘ (pancake) to our order which tasted pretty good but could’ve done well with some more actual kimchi. It looked quite pale too and I wished it to be more crispy and less oily as well.
The second reservation during Restaurant Week was at Buyan, the Russian place up at Duxton Hill.
Second add on were the ‘Pelmeni‘, smallish cooked Russian dumplings, that even though filled with a close to hardish meat mince, tasted great and the chilled sour cream and the beetroot dipping sauce made for some awesome condiments. Perfect skin too. For main I chose the ‘Lamb Shashlyk‘ which was a bit of a let down. The meat was quite tough and far too well done and the barley, onions and peppers were oily and soft.
Thankfully they ended the set dinner greatly with their ‘Blinis‘ which reminded me strongly of an old fashioned apple strudel which, because of the paper thin crepes came across a tad lighter, with lovely baked apple and cinnamon flavours. Nice finish.
Restaurant week was back in town and for a change I didn’t sleep all through the whole show this time and even scored two dinner bookings which of the first was at ‘Hashi’s’.
The dessert was a sampler of two. I wasn’t a big fan of the red bean bars with chestnut and their super rich and filling character but the red bean and sake flavoured cake was actually quite good and interesting but nearly too small to really wrap my head around it and fully get the taste. I’ll probably never understand this red bean thing anyway?
Just before the soup, we also shared their ‘Signature Seafood Salad‘ which was top. Everything was super fresh, the greens were crunchy, the prawns and squid had a lovely firm bite, fish was soft and sweet and the chunky avocado added yet another texture to the bunch. The dressing, even though a bit too heavy on the oil, was citrusy and just simple as I like it.
It wasn’t long until my ‘Beef Noodle‘ marathon began and this time I had to have ‘Yong Kang’s’ noodles which are ranked as the best in Taipei by many local food bloggers. The last trip we couldn’t nail this place down walking the alleys of Da’an around Yongkang street up and down but just couldn’t find it. Even this time together with my Taiwanese colleague it took us some extra rounds to get here and then there was a queue in front despite the rain but thankfully it wasn’t too long ’til we got in.
Yong Kang Beef Noodle 永康牛肉麺館
I was lucky enough that another work trip brought me back to Taipei and I planned to go back to all the places we had found during our holidays last year and try others I didn’t have the time for then. My first stop was at Da’an and brought me back to a shop we only tried out because there was a massive metal kettle including cook sitting in the window.
As a light side I chose the ‘Stir Fry Bean Sprouts‘ which were as great as veggies can get, boiled but still with some texture, fresh and light, garlicky and juicy with some chilli to gently kick your taste bud’s butts.
I spontaneously caught up with a friend over dinner and since days I was thinking about my former favourite ramen shop ‘Ippudo’ and the fact that I had never actually tried their signature bowl; decision made.
Get Your Grub On! 