BALI'S CRISPY DUCK

Here's one place that I truly enjoyed in Bali...Crispy Duck. Our tour guide told us that duck is very popular here in Bali so we had him take us to a restaurant that has very good crispy duck.

The name of the restaurant is Bebek Tepi Sawah.

We just ordered the crispy duck and it came with rice and string beans cooked with coconut milk.

I truly enjoyed the crispy duck and it was really crispy. Even the bone was crispy. As is, it's good already. I tried it though with a sauce made with shallots, tomato, and I think lemon grass and chopped garlic and oil. The other sauce was sambal. Then they also have the sweet soy sauce...kecap manis. It was good too.

I enjoyed my meal with freshly squeezed lime juice. Yummy!

Across the restaurant too is a building filled with everything you could think of for pasalubong! So after your meal, you can walk across to do some souvenir shopping.

Fun, fun fun!!!

STREET FOOD IN BEIJING

In Beijing, in the Wangfujing area, there's a strip where they sell street food. Every day, as the sun begins to set, the people set up the food in the stalls and they start preparing the food that they will sell for the evening.  Here are the photos of what they sell there.  Some are really interesting. I can only take photos and not try.  I couldn't afford to have a bummed stomach as my days were always full for sight seeing, I'm sure you know how the public toilets are there and I wouldn't want to be looking for one every hour or so. Ok back to the food story... check out some of the labels! :-)

 Silkworm

 Crayfish

 Octopus

 Skewered fresh fruits

 Skewered scorpions

 Skewered grasshoppers

 I would've loved to try this! Steamed crabs!!!

 Noodles with assorted meat and vegetables cooked on the flat top

 Assorted dumplings

 Noodle soups

 Caramelized skewered fruits

 Which one would you try here???  I think I'll go for the snake :-)

 Starfish and I think stinky tofu

baby shark :-( how sad... then below are photos of the other stalls that they have on the strip.

DINNER IN BEIJING

Happy Easter to everyone! I hope everyone had a fun break. 

Ok this is not exactly the best meal I had there but it's nice to share this. It's quite surprising to have something like this in a seafood restaurant.  If they can serve food like this and knowing that it's not their specialty, I think the specials would taste excellent! I didn't even get the name of the restaurant but this is the seafood restaurant by Novotel Xin Quiao in Beijing on the second floor.

We didn't really order much because we just had cocktails an hour before we headed to the restaurant.

 Here's the sliced soft tofu with sauteed vegetables.  It was pretty good! 

 Here's the eggplant hotpot with straw mushrooms.  The eggplant was cooked well and the sauce was flavorful.  

 We got this for the kids...Garlic chicken.  It's basically seared chicken pieces seasoned with cracked Schezuan peppercorn and garlic.  It was good too.

 This was the favorite that evening... stewed pork with wood ear mushrooms. The pork was melt-in-your mouth tender! I'm sure they cooked this for several hours to get it that tender.

Here are the noodles that we had, stir fried with beef.  It was well cooked too.


We planned on going back for another meal to try the other dishes on the menu.  The prices were very reasonable too.  We decided though to try the japanese restaurant right beside it though. Anyway, will definitely keep this one on my list.

NEW YEAR'S EVE DINNER

After a lovely day in Phuket, we hurriedly dressed up for our New Year's Ever dinner at the ship.

Here's Sabrina with her cousin Sophie all dressed up and ready for the festivities.

Here's the menu for the special dinner.

Here's the hat to greet the new year!

I liked the bread that they had that evening. Cranberry bread and corn bread. Both freshly baked!

Here's the family. I had no idea that most of us decided to wear red hahaha. 

Here's the first glass of bubbly for me!

Sabrina's pasta...again...

Here's my soup with wonton.

Salad with artichoke hearts, grapefruit and walnuts.

Surf and Turf

Mother and daughter in our New Year head bands

Dessert...Chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse.

Here's Sabrina and Sophie partying with the other guests. Dancing to mamma mia!

Balloons, waiting to be dropped after the countdown.

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1! Happy New Year! Happy 2012.

Sabrina and I had so much fun in the cruise. I think we will do this again!!!