Spicy aglio e olio with slow roasted tomatoes

Aglio e olio means "spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chili peppers" in Italian. Its a traditional Italian pasta dish with a minimal amount of ingredients and of course, easy to make. When I first heard about it, I assumed it would be a bland tasting dish since the only key ingredients in it was olive oil and garlic. Only after trying it that I realised I was actually wrong.

The original dish doesn't include any meat but there are a few versions out there which includes either shrimp, pepperoni, sliced ham or pancetta. My version has slow roasted tomatoes and sliced chicken sausages in it. 

Who needs sun dried tomatoes when you can slow roast them in your oven right? All you have to do is slice the baby tomatoes into half, arrange them onto the baking tray lined with either baking paper or foil paper, drizzle some olive oil, and roast them at 100°C / 212°F for 2 hours. The taste is almost similar to the store bought sun dried tomatoes and is definitely much cheaper to make them on your own.

To make this delicious pasta dish, lightly fry minced garlic, shallots and some chili flakes in a bit of olive oil until fragrant. Add in the sliced chicken sausages and continue frying for about one minute. Then add in the spaghetti and some salt to taste. Finally add in the roasted tomatoes and toss it to evenly distribute the ingredients with the pasta. If its too dry, drizzle some olive oil. Make sure to boil the spaghetti in water with enough salt for the flavor and some oil to avoid them from sticking onto each other after cooked. 

Its really a lazy person's dish as it requires very little ingredients and skills to make it. This would definitely be a perfect dinner on a lazy worknite!

A taste of home

I was craving for Malaysian food last night, so me and my husband decided to head out for dinner at one of the Malaysian restaurant, D'Nyonya. They serve authentic Malaysian cuisine and you can find almost any food you want here. D'Nyonya restaurant currently has 3 branches located in Ho Chi Minh City, Pnom Penh and in Perth. According to their website, they'll be opening another branch in Perth soon. They used to have a branch back in Malaysia located in Ara Damansara but I'm not too sure if they are still in business since they have removed it from their website.

The interior of this restaurant pretty much reminds me of home. Huge posters of the Baba & Nyonya family and the olden days of Penang pretty much creates a cozy atmosphere.

I can assure you that the food here is awesome and almost anything you order would taste delicious. I've tried their Nasi Goreng Kampung, Char Kueh Teow, Nasi Lemak, Curry Laksa and Prawn Mee. I would consider myself a difficult customer when it comes to food, but I approve all of the dishes above. I decided to go with Prawn Mee this time but Ram felt like eating rice so he ordered white rice, with fried tofu telur (egg tofu) and stir fried kailan (Chinese Broccoli / Mustard Orchid) with garlic. The fried tofu telur was amazing. It was deep fried and served in a special sweet and sour sauce. As for the stir fried kailan, it was nothing much to be screamed about.

Prawn Mee

Fried Tofu Telur (Egg Tofu)

Stir fried Kailan (Chinese Broccoli / Mustard Orchid) with garlic

Sirap Bandung (Sugar syrup with milk)

The drinks here can be a little too sweet, but you may choose to reduce the sugar level. They also offer a variety of Malaysian desserts. I've tried their Ais Kacang / ABC once and I liked it.

Char Kueh Teow (Picture taken a while ago)

Ais Kacang / ABC (Picture taken a while ago)

Overall, I would rate D'Nyonya as the best Malaysia restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City and I would highly recommend this place if you want a taste of authentic halal Malaysian cuisine.

Hungry but lazy?

Have you ever felt hungry but lazy at the same time? Too lazy to cook or to get out of the comfort of your home? I'm sure most of us have felt this way. And at that point, we most definitely would have hoped that most of the eateries could deliver the food we want to us. Back in KL, it is possible, but the food delivery services are very much limited to only a certain fast food joints and restaurants.

Here in Ho Chi Minh City, almost all the eateries/restaurants/cafes offer delivery services to home, hotels and offices. When I first got to know about this, I was definitely surprised and excited. I'm a person who absolutely hate going out during the peak hours of the day just for a simple take away. Recently, I found a few websites that actually has a list of all the restaurants that delivers with their complete menu online. 

Vietnammm was the first online food delivery website which I came across while browsing. This website can be viewed in 4 different languages, English, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean. These options makes it so much easier for most expats to place an order. Customers who are not confident enough to speak English or Vietnamese may place their orders online and pay upon delivery. Online support is available if customers have any inquiries or problems while placing an order.

Homepage for www.vietnammm.com

List of restaurants in the selected location

Information of the selected restaurant and their menu

Eat.vn is another food delivery website which can be viewed in 2 different languages, English and Vietnamese.Its pretty much similar to Vietnammm where you just have to select the restaurant available in your location, place an order and pay upon delivery. Online support is also available for inquiries purposes.

Homepage for www.eat.vn

List of restaurants in the selected location

Information of the selected restaurant and their menu

And last but not least would be hungrypanda! This website offers food delivery for 5 other countries as well. But in Malaysia, Singapore, India, Indonesia and Thailand, its called foodpanda. Again, the process is almost the same. Specify your location, select your restaurant, place an order and pay upon delivery. Online support is not available but customers may call the number given on the site if they have any inquiries.

Homepage for hungrypanda

List of restaurants in the selected location

Information of the selected restaurant and their menu

There's also another site called hungry.vn which is fully in Vietnamese language which I think the locals might be interested in. Not all restaurants are available in all these websites. So do browse through and see which of these four carries your favorite restaurant. If its not in any of these websites, do let them know and they might add it for you in the future!

So remember, if you're feeling hungry but lazy at the same time, your food is just a click away!

What have I been up to?

I was a Creative Designer for 4 years and I thought I would remain as one for the rest of my life until my husband got transferred. I was definitely excited when I knew that I had to resign my full time job as I never fancied an 8-5 job in the first place. But the thing is, he got transferred to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I had mixed feelings about moving away from my family, friends and home of 26 years into a country which is so different.

Moving away from the comfort of home only meant one thing to me... that I'll need to start cooking. The thing is, I never cooked before. Not even after getting married as I was staying with my in-laws. So learning how to cook was my first priority before moving to HCMC. My mum is and will always be the best cook I've ever known! No one can beat your own mum's cooking, right? So I made her teach me all the basics of cooking and guess what? Once I moved into our new home in HCMC, I surprised myself. Sorry if I'm bragging but for a beginner, I was whipping out quite a variety of dishes. I've attempted cooking Indian, Malay, Chinese and Western cuisine. So far, it all turned out fairly good. This was when I realised that I actually had passion for cooking.

It has been almost a year since I've moved and I would love to share some of the dishes/desserts that I've cooked/baked. Sorry if the pictures are not clear since all of them were snapped using my iPhone camera.

I have always been wanting to blog about food and the fun leisure stuff that I get to do here as a housewife. But as usual, procrastination got the best of me. I will have to thank my friends, Nora, Craig and Putri for pushing me into making this happen sooner than I thought it would. Looking forward to blog more often and I'll definitely try to make it more interesting by posting more pictures yeah!

Till then....