Excellent Yakiniku @ Stamina-En, Bangkok

My recent trips to Bangkok saw me frequenting the same restaurants until my recent trip. My cousin until recently when my cousin took me to his new favorite Yakiniku Restaurant called Stamina-En in Thonglor.





Assorted Kim-Chi



Korean Style Cold Noodles



Melt in your mouth Beef

I have no idea what cut this is but it was ridiculously marbled and flavorful. The meat literally melts in your mouth.


Marinated Bulgolgi

The Bulgolgi was thinly sliced and melts in your mouth and the marinade wasn't too sweet.


Marinated Beef Ribs



Beef Tongue

The Beef Tongue was quite good. It had a nice marbling and was cut thick.


Bacon




Pork Platter

Our Pork Platter consisted of Pork Sausage, Pork Neck and Spicy Marinated Pork.


Marinated Pork Neck

One of my favorite Pork Cuts. The Neck had a nice combination of streaky fat and meat.


Baked Salmon

A typical way of eating Salmon to avoid it sticking to the grill. The Salmon was very moist from being steamed inside the foil and was excellent with the lime and butter.


The Beef and Pork at Stamina-En were excellent! The only thing I have wished is for the restaurant to use a Charcoal Grill instead of Gas. It is easily one of my favorite Yakiniku restaurant I've had outside of Japan.



Food: 4.5/5
Service: 4.5/5
Ambiance: 4/5
Price: $$ (Approximately USD $25 per person)


Contact Information
Address: 139 The Opus 2nd Floor Soi Thonglor 10, Sukhumvit, Klongton Nue, Bangkok
Tel: +66-2713-8476
Map:

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Easy as Puffs @ The Baking Barn by Just Heavenly, Bangsar, KL

Some of my favourite desserts back in my UK days are cream puffs, eclairs and profiteroles. I would always grab a box from the bakery section just before I checked out at the counter. In KL, there are only a handful of places selling good ones, including A Slice of Heaven- we've tried them before and we liked them!

Last week, Nigel of Just Heavenly extended an invite to me to attend one of his baking classes at The Baking Barn, Bangsar - to learn how to make choux pastry! Of course I had to say yes.

This is the second time I've attended one of Nigel's classes. What I like is that he guides you through the process, lets you try your hand at it and by the end of the class, you feel accomplished, like you TOO can do it back in the comfort of your own home. Plus his classes are always so much fun - Nigel is so entertaining and funny, we had such a good laugh and I met a bunch of really nice people there.

At his baking class, Nigel always concentrates on one mother recipe and from there he would usually teach 2-3 cakes or desserts from that one recipe. We learnt how to make pate a choux (choux pastry) and from there, we shaped them into cream puffs, swans, eclairs, churros and deep fried chinese doughnuts! We also got to learn several fillings such as creme patissiere, creme St Honore, creme Chantilly and quick chocolate filling - all in 2 1/2 hours!

I will definitely be trying my hand at making choux pastry (hubby will be very happy!), and will share the recipes soon! In the meantime, do enjoy the photos that I took at The Baking Barn last Saturday!

At his baking classes, N! igel wil l share tips and tricks for baking including simple everyday tips on how to crack an egg without getting chips into the bowl. How? Never knock an egg against the side of a bowl to crack it, instead crack it on a flat surface or bump two eggs together to crack one of them at a time. Now you know!

Nigel showing us how to make the choux pastry

Piping the cream puffs

Glazing them with egg-salt-water just before baking

To make choux pastry, the oven needs to be turned to its highest temperature setting so that the choux pastry can expand nicely. After 10-15 minutes in the oven, the cream puff shells are looking mighty fine!

Immediately after taking them out of the oven, turn them around and pierce the middle with a sharp knife

Next, we tried shaping swans... perhaps the most complicated and laborious of the lot, but with a very pretty result! I tried my hand at piping the head/neck...

Nigel shows us how to do it

This is how it looks when it comes out of the oven

Making the swan's body

The swan's body..

Meanwhile, Nigel shows us how to make creme patissiere - drizzle in the milk very slowly into the yolk-sugar-salt mixture (I made this for my Boston cream pie previously).

By now, we were all doing different tasks.. these are our eclairs.. getting glazed before being put in the oven

Creme pattisiere done... absolutely lovely..

And using the creme patissiere, Nigel folded in meringue to make Creme St Honore, a lighter cream filling for our puffs.

Creme St Honore..done!

Oooo these were one of my favorites that afternoon.. Chinese fried doughnuts. I have this rule at home where we NEVER deep fry stuff, but for this maybe I will forego my rule LOL!! Using 2 teaspoons, shape quenelles and place them in cold oil.. then deep fry until golden brown. They taste heavenly!!!! So so good.

Love this so much!

Cream puffs

And Nigel assembles the first swan! Pretty, right?

I made this one ;)

Making churros

Churros, hot from the pan, with some cocoa powder and sugar

Delicious eclairs with creme chantilly

Everyone did ! a great job in putting this together, thanks Nigel for being such a great teacher!

This was very very good!

Here's the schedule for July classes at The Baking Barn. From 5 July onwards, baking classes will also be held on Thursdays at 9.30am as well as the Saturday ones at 2.00pm.

Click here to view class schedule for July and August. You can buy your classes online or call them on 03-2287 9866 / 03-2284 9866. There is also a special kids class (for under 14s) on 23 August for RM160.

Full set of photos from the baking class can be viewed on my Facebook page here.

Price: RM180 per class.

Location:The Baking Barn, 47 Jalan Terasek, 59100 Bangsar, KL (approx. 400m from Bangsar Village).

GPS Coordinates:3.131132, 101.667695

Point Reyes Cont,

But we couldn't just drive so far north and leave without eating something local so I insisted we find a restaurant, eat quickly and drive like mad back to the city.




Cafe Reyes looked like the best restaurant in town, big, quaint, cosy and it had a coffee grinder as big as a chimney on one side and a wood-fired oven on the other. Very promising, but I didn't go to Pt Reyes for pizzas. I wanted something local. I saw a lady closing her shop and asked her where I could get some oysters (what else, we didn't have much time) and she said "That'll be Station House Cafe." We went there, and we knew we were at the right place. There were no customers at Cafe Reyes (it was about 5 pm) but Cafe House Station was bustling and noisy, tables were mostly taken and people looked like they were enjoying their food.


BBQ oysters, USD12.25 for half dozen. Oysters are best eaten au natural, period.


1/2 pound sweet yummy clams in wine, so good I wanted more but was shot down by my companions.


Popovers. What ARE popovers? They looked like Yorkshire pudding, tasted like Yorkshire pudding but without the drippings and these were simply awesome. So good we asked for another serving, and I would have asked for more but didn't want to look cheap because the popovers (and terrific bread) came free.


These are the best Yorkshire pudding/popovers I've ever eaten. Crusty outside, soft and light inside and very tasty, even without butter. Simple but this was one of the best things I ate in SF.


Chicken veg soup with orzo (ric-shaped pasta), USD3.95. Loved it.


Not giving up on the bad clam chowders that I had eaten in SF, I ordered Station House Cafe's clam chowder (USD4.95) and surprise, it was very good too except it was slightly acidic.


This is two orders of mushrooms, USD0.75 each. This was seriously good. S! eriously .

I would go back to Station House Cafe if I go to Point Reyes again. In fact, I would drive there and eat oysters at Station House Cafe and forget about shucking them myself. The Cafe's oysters are from Drakes Oyster Farm, and they cost less at USD1.80 each. Now you know.


Like a paparazzi-weary celebrity, this pooch ignored me after a while. He was sitting in a car near the cafe.




We passed through many small towns where you can have fresh oysters.


Quality grass-fed meat too.


There were some redwood trees (related to the sequoias) on the way but these were puny compared to the giants further up north. On our previous trip to SF, we went to the Muir Woods National Park and I highly recommend that, especially if you are with your kids.


Yi doggie bagged Vietnamese-style beef and tomatoes from The Other Slanted Door, which she said was way better than The Slanted Door. This was good, like home-cooked beef and tomatoes, but the surprise flavor was cloves, which made an ordinary dish more interesting and aromatic.