Turbo Go Go

Last wednesday, A and me sampled half the menu of asian restaurant Turbo Go Go. Despite my intention to take my camera with me, I forgot. So, I only had my phone cam to take some pictures. And they turned out to be overexposed, out of focus... etc.

So, this friday, I decided to sample some of their sushi, of which we only managed to have a few because of all of the other things we had to try.

For 15 bucks, they give you a selection of 24 pieces of sushi. These include simple ones with cucumber and some pickle, salmon, shrimp...

...omelette, and that tofu-like stuff they use to envelope a piece of rice. All very nice.

However, I wasn't that fond of the tobiko-variety, with surimi, avocado and crab eggs on the outside. It was less tasty than expected.

And on that bombshell, I guess, I'll end this crappy blog post, but what more is there to say about sushi? I guess the only sushi worth writing about extensively, would be sushi of bad quality. But then, who would sell crappy sushi? Well, perhaps if it'll become more ubiquitous than it is now, lesser gods may step up to the scene.

Ubuntu cola

Back again from Norway, with a stop in Sweden and a stop in Danmark, so time to pick up where I left off. By the way, G&A are married and it was a beautiful wedding! Also a great stay in Norway.

Wednesday the 29th we were in Sweden still, and we decided to make a trip to two nearby islands offshore, Tjörn and Orust, though they were both connected by bridges to the mainland. Like our travel guide mentioned, they didn't have anything special to visit, they were just nice places to drive or rest.

Now, the gas station where we refueled had these 0,5 L coke-bottles, which were named Ubuntu cola! Isn't that great? For those of you who don't know the other Ubuntu, it's quite a popular Linux distribution (computer operating system) and I guess the most renowned. It's free software. From their website:

Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'

Unfortunately, the coke wasn't for free. However, it tasted like it should have been :). Which is to say, it didn't actually taste like coke (no, not even like Pepsi). I guess it was part of some sort of charity project, so I guess it's good for your karma at least.


At the local bakery at one of the villages on Orust, I got this funny little bread, which wasn't really anything special. Like the picture shows, it had some lettuce, hard-boiled egg slices, tomato and cucumber. On top of it was some pieces of pickled herring. All over Scandinavia they have these kinds of pickled herring. Where the Dutch pickled herring is either very salt or very sour, the Scandinavian type is subtly sweet with a hint of sour. I like it! It went well with the other ingredients on the bread and made for a nice snack.

Barbecue

I know what you're thinking. "What, spareribs? Again?!". As usual, there was some sort of celebratory event, that justifies eating this.

M, one of N's friends, came over all the way from Brabant. We wondered what we would have for dinner, and a BBQ seemed like a nice idea, even though we'll be having another BBQ tomorrow at J&L's.

The spareribs were bought pre-marinated and pre-grilled, so they only had to be heated basically. Tasted quite nice.

These were some curry-marinated chicken breast strip skewers. Quite okay, but a little dry. Went well with BBQ-sauce.

These were some cubes of old cheese, wrapped in baconstrips. Simple and nice!

To go with the meats, I had prepared some couscous salad, welded in vegetable stock, mixed with orange and grapefruit parts. Also, I had made grilled pepper strips, marinated in garlic. Then, I made cucumber pickle and tzatziki, using soy yoghurt (not gross at all) and tzatziki mix my parents brought with them from their holiday in Greece. Finally, I made some satay sauce, using soy milk, peanut butter, chili sauce and soy sauce. Traditionally, in Holland, we have sliced baguette with it and a variety of other sauces. I picked Heinz's barbecue-sauce and herbed butter for the baguette.

Now, this gun-shaped device is so cool! It's not 007's latest gadget, or the newest G.I. Joe toy gun. Well, the writing gives it away of course. It's a BBQ fan! You squeeze the red trigger-like thing and the fan starts blowing through its metal nozzle. Pointing it at the charcoal, you direct a jet of oxygen straight into the hot spot. It works great. Saves you waving a piece of paper to supply an undirected amount of oxygen in the charcoal's direction.

There were a lot of leftovers, mainly sides. We'll take them with us to the BBQ @ J&L's.

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinners usually allow me to spend a little more time on preparing the meal. This sunday, I made the dish above (or below, but it doesn't really matter of course, because they're different photos from the same dish).

I preheated the oven to 50^oC (122^oF) and put a steak in, and let it there for about half an hour. Meat apparently tends to cook at 50-60^oC (122-140^oF), but cooking at too high a temperature supposedly makes the collagen contract and thus squeezes out all the meat's juices, giving you a tough piece of meat. Therefore, cooking at a low temperature maintains the tenderness. However, it will take longer for the heat to reach the core of the meat, so you'll need to cook your meat longer. After cooking in the oven I fried the meat for exactly one minute on each side and let it rest five minutes, wrapped in tin foil.

I cut the meat to 2 mm slices and served them on top of a pile of fried mushrooms, which were put on top of a heap of napa cabbage (raw), mixed with some tinned corn kernels and a dressing of chili sauce and pickle juice (the acidity of the pickle juice cut nicely through the sugary richness of the chili sauce, and the heat of the chili saus gave it all an extra zest).

I drizzled two tablespoons of chimichurri on top, which I had made two hours in advance, using parsley, cilantro, two garlic cloves, balsamic vinegar and oregano perfumed olive oil. On top of that a nice hand of alfalfa.

Alongside it I scooped some leftover couscous salad, which was previously made with stock welded couscous, fried bacon rinds, garlic and herb olives, parsley, cilantro, deseeded, skinned and diced tomatoes and diced cucumber.

I must say, it was a nice experiment which turned out pretty okay. N. loved it and it looked quite good. Surprisingly, the flavours mixed quite well. The acidity and heat of the cabbage/corn contrasted the hearty flavour of the beef and mushrooms, which in turn were complemented by the freshness of the chimichurri and the alfalfa. A lot of raw vegetables made sure it was a healthy meal, together with the fact that we shared just one steak amongst the two of us - something which I never thought would do for a meatlover like myself :)