Monday 31 January 2011

5 days in Seoul

My favorite midnight feast in Korea: Gamjatang which is a spicy soup made with pork spine, vegetables, green onions, hot peppers and ground wild sesame seeds. A lot of collagen! Very Good for skin!  

Posamu; Boiled Pork eat with veg and Kimuchi

BBQ of pork back ribs marinated with herbs

Seafood congee; Korean one has hint of sesame oil

Dim sum with Korean twist at Korean air lounge: Kimchi taste dim sum!

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Kimchi Soba noodle


Sometime I create a great new dish when I need to cook with what I have in my fridge. Tomorrow, I will travel to Seoul so I can't do shopping and I made this new noodle dish; Kimchi, Chinese black mashroom, morning glory with Soba noodle. Japanese x Korean dish.

Monday 24 January 2011

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion at Barbican. They mainly featured three leading and directional designers; Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto. They gave big impact to not just Japanese fashion but also worldwide. In this exhibition you could find each designer have different approach to Fashion which is very interesting.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Survivour from Octopas tragety



I didn't have much luck with Octopus this time. My four tins of octopus was arrested at airport security and they throw them away... I knew it could be problem to bring back tins with hand luggage but I thought it's even less than 100ml so should be fine. Those are survivors i come back with...

Also this cheese!! Oh, It was such a creamy cheese.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Octopus

The main reason I come to Porto was to eat their famous octopus! but the Octopus restaurant I wanted to go was closed for new year holiday... Still I can't go back to London until I taste the Porto's octopus if that was the main reason to come. So we searched a restaurant where they serve octopus all over the city. We finally found the restaurant also with live piano performance. It was nice last supper in Porto but I definitely need to come back to try real octopus dish next time.

Cheese for desert

with Port wine

Friday 21 January 2011

Damien Hirst butcher

They must fan of Damien Herst or are they the one original? ; A butcher in Porto

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Bifana

Portugal pork hamburger; Bifana equivalent to kebab in London

Very juicy spiced slice pork sandwich

Relax Moment for the Bafina chef.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Town of Porto



Port is famous for their aged Port wine and green wine (white wine picked grape late and drunk very young) produced in the Douro valley. There are a lot of wineries along side of Douro liver.

Signature of architecture here is use of tiles.

Even Church was made by blue/white tiles and concrete, very special.

My favorite Jesus in Porto.

Cheese shop with Portuguese crochet sign; Double excitements for me, so cute!

My heart after I found the cheese shop (feels like dancing!)

Local Vegetable shop, if I live here, I would probably became regular.

Food Market in town.


Monday 10 January 2011

Portucale

We looked at a recommendation list from a friend and one of the restaurant in the list was in our hotel; The Restaurant Portucale
Typical Portuguese soup; Acorda Alentejana

Very friendly staff




The view was fantastic, we could see whole Port. Also again, very authentic 60's deco here. Feels like time traveled to 60's. Very special experience.

Saturday 8 January 2011

Porto



My first trip in 2011; To Porto.

On the way,

Very modern European design

View from our hotel room.

It was a quite old hotel but with nice view and they are four stars?!

All the interior seems like never changed from 1960's

The way of bed making is also decadence.

Very classic style; my new vintage orange bag suits to the room.

Monday 3 January 2011

Saturday 1 January 2011

A Happy new year 2011!!

Fresh start of year 2011.
A lot of fruits help to wake me up.

After our fresh fruits breakfast, we went to a wood to see my family in Essex.

Master of tree; P.

Very creative artist; S and new member of our family; N.

Hanging kettle on fire

Appetizer; Selection of ham and cheese, minced pie, Wasabi pea.

Real smoked bacon!

This is something i was amazed; I never imagined someone could make cake with camp fire but...

Here it is. Blueberry cake!!

We start doing this picnic lunch for Christmas or New year's day from last year. Most of people say "wow how brave to do picnic under freezing condition!!" but once you expericenced it, you know what a great way to spend Christmas or New year rather than stay indoor. Fresh air, real fire, surrounding by nature make us very happy. You feel great how to start new year!