Painful Psychobabble: Frenzical Food

Eating in Auckland has so far been underwhelming. Certainly, the food culture here is dimensions away from that of Singapore. Pies and chips shouldn't be defined as proper food right?

Starting from the beginning, my first meal began with a $8.00 Padh-Thai Noodles at an Asian Food Court.

Then the disturbing trend of Asian Food continued...

Korean Bi bim bap

Japanese Yakisoba

Beijing's gou bu li bao(狗不理包) and spicy Si-chuan soup

The chef was effusively friendly and apologized that it would take quite long to make the steamed buns. So to pass time, he regaled us with a long tale of how the buns got it's unorthodox name, 狗不理 (gou bu li).

Nasi Lemak (with kickass chill) and Teh Tarik

Mee Goreng

Beef Murtabak

Roti Prata

The suspiciously Singaporean-styled food was served at Railway Cafe, an eating place in one of the school accommodation. And not-too-surprisingly, the friendly macik in charge of the cafe was indeed from Singapore.

She mentioned to us how Singapore had been too noisy for her although she always missed the food.

Her solution?
Open a cafe and cook it herself.

The third most common food eaten after Japanese and Korean food was pizza.

I didn't really take much pictures of the better tasting ones from Pizza Fresca but that of La Porchetta would suffice.

The Lot Pizza Tradizionale

Focaccia Ripiena Semi-dried Tomatoes

And more chocolate...
Dark-chocolate coated with a white chocolate heart Afghan with Caramello Choccacino

Stop it, there's nothing politically bush about the lovely cookie.

Ahhh... All is sinfully good if you have deep pockets.
Unfortunately, cooking yourself remains as the cheaper alternative.

The first meal cooked in the apartment with the help of Wei Xin's mother.

The second meal cooked by people in their twenties, aka the 3 NUSsers.

We wanted to spice things up so in comes the Ma Po Dou Fu, although it turned out a bit wrong when there was too little sauce in too much beancurd.

Another ubiquitous meal with fish debuting on the table for the first time

The first noodle meal staring cream fish and hash browns

After a couple of weeks of learning how to cook, the can-only-cook-instant-noodle Kelvin decided to reward himself with some proper homecooked lunch. Although it took much longer than expected, I was beaming with pride when I took the picture.

But Alas! I thought my supposedly fusion black pepper pasta tasted a bit weird. In fact, it was a little tat too salty for my palate. I opened the fridge to take a second look at the sauce I added.

Horrors of horrors, I had mistaken the GARLIC BLACK BEAN SAUCE as black pepper sauce. Gross...

Below is the original black pepper pasta that inspired me to cook the previous fiasco. The black pepper sauce was heavenly peppery and SOLID but it almost killed the rest of the guests (for housewarming).

Add another year of cooking experience and our modest 2 dish meal cooked by 3 people for 7 (above) was confidently trumped by a 3 dish meal prepared by ONE person for 8.

Pizza, Chicken rice and Bak kut teh. Really lovedthe garlic and ginger...

18th August 2008
If you have cooked in New Zealand for all your life, you would probably have developed skills that would rival that of Jeremy's homestay "parents".

Lunch began with appetizers, innocuous sushi prepared by the giggling girl in the background.

And then, the feast began.

Prawns served with a sweet and sour dip, Fusilli Pasta, Noodle bits, Pickles, "Shrek" super cheesy pasta, Celery with sour cream and nuts, Bread with asparagus, pickles, Edam and Brie cheese, Green grapes, Black pepper potato, Salmon strips with bread

As we began to tuck in, another bowl of potato salad was served.

Then came two roasted spring chicken (from Foodtown), where by Jeremy's "father" extracted the "wishbone" and shared with us a funny little superstition.

As I was getting really satiated, we were adviced to eat the cheese with the crackers. And another plate of deep fried stuff (eg. spring rolls and some sesame seed hash brown) made itself at home on the table.