Aagrah Indian Restaurant

It’s bizarre that you can easily find a really authentic Indian restaurant in North, especially Bradford and Leeds. I found Bradford sometimes like London’s Brick Lane.

Mel and I did go to Aagrah underneath BBC in Leeds once. The restaurant has an impressive luxury decor, however food is a reasonable price. Food was full of spice and flavours with a generous portion. Overall it’s pretty good.

On last Saturday night, we forgot to book a tablet and couldn’t find a restaurant anyway in Leeds City Centre except waiting for an hour. Then we drove passed Aagrah In Bradford, then we decided to try it again.

The restaurant in Bradford was not as luxury decor as the BBC one, but it has 3 floors, and surprisingly the first floor was almost full. It’s the most gigantic indian restaurant I had seen so far. We ordered a lot, but because it’s quite late,(about 10pm) and with their generous portion, all of us couldn’t manage to finish them all. Over all, it’s 3.8 of 5.

Champagne In Harvey Nicole

Mel, Alex and me decided to have another night out. I always enjoy our girls night with a lot of chatting and wine. We went to Harvey Nicole for our first Champagne bottle, then we went to 2 popular pubs in city centre for our cocktails (don’t know their names, but was fun even though it was a raining night)

I do like girls night with cocktails or champagne and girls sharing. It was a fun night and always so nice to hang out with Mel and Alex.

Red Chilli Restaurant for Chinese New Year

After craving for some dumplings in Chinese New Year Eve, I dragged John to have some Chinese food yesterday. John teased me said I just had an excuse to eat more food. It’s true, and how naughty I am. We had been to Cantonese Ho’s restaurant a lot of time. If you need to eat dumplings, the best dumpling is from the North region of China.

There is a Norther spicy food in Leeds City Centre called Red Chilli, which is quite famous. We went and ordered some northern food. Price is a little bit expensive, but food is not bad as well as service. We tried few dishes, and it was very authentic. Overall 4 stars of 5.

We properly ate too much and enjoy lovely Chinese New Year Eve dinner in Red Chilli.

Girls night out

Colleagues became my good Leeds friends went out for a girls night out in Ho’s Chinese restaurant which they really like their food. With different religion of restriction food and different taste was quite hard to satisfy everyone’s taste. However Ho’s did have a lot of selection and they all went back home with a really full stomach and smile.

Then we decided to go to a famous gay pub in city centre to have few drink and dance. It was really a fun night, and I really treasure and lucky to have all my friends in Leeds. They are really good people.

2010 Christmas

Melanie (sister-in-law) was hosted Christmas in 2008, and it’s nice to host this year in our new flat in Leeds. It’s like our Chinese New Year and everyone was so busy to prepare food, gifts and the Christmas mood.

I was in charge of all the food except the Christmas Turkey and dessert. Paul (future Brother-in-law) brought a really nice organic turkey and it tasted so good. John was in charge of pudding, and he decided he made the rich chocolate truffle tote. After a big meal, we had a walk, then played a game. We had a fabulous Christmas in our house.

Christmas is always about family, food and laugh. Hope you had a good Christmas as well.

Eileen and Rok Visiting Leeds

Eileen and Rok came to visit us before Christmas. I am glad that the early snow didn’t affect our schedule. Living in London, they get used to being in a city and it’s time to show them famous Yorkshire countrysides and some pretty villages.

We took them to Derbyshire Bakewell first, then went to Chatsworth house, because day time was quite short in winter, we had to make sure that we caught the best day light before the sunset. Then drove back to Leeds, and ate in Thai Edge for dinner, then went to the pub.

On the last day of their visit, we decided to take them to North Yorkshire to visit Haworth, and had a big lunch with beef yorkshire pudding and went to hiking a little bit before it went dark.

The weather was so cold, most of days were -4 degree to -10 degree. We spent most of time chatting and enjoyed the scenery. I did enjoy the trips with Eileen and Rok, and they were great accompanies. Moreover, It’s such a wonderful experience to see all the places covered snow.Everything looked like a picture, and I felt like I was living in fairy tale story.

Britain is truly pretty in every season.

Killer Jerk Chicken with Rice & been

I always try to make some good quality food at the weekend. Followed Jamie Oliver’s 30 minutes meal’s book, I tried to make ‘Killer Jerk Chicken‘ with kidney bean rice, salad, lime coriander yogurt sauce, and BBQ sweet corn this time. I like Jamaica or Caribbean food – all about spice and different flavours.

It was not really difficult to make, and it was really delicious. I am sure if I can make it, anyone can as well. I think the kidney been or black been rice was so delicious. I always know about normal rice, but with little bit herb and spice, the rice was so full of flavour and alive – absolutely delicious.

Served with my favourite Hoegaarden cold beer, happy day ever!

Polish Food and Culture

Karolina is my working colleague, and we bond to each other so quick after few months working. She loves Chinese food more than I do sometimes. Both of us are seafood’s lovers, and normal I always invite her to my place, so I can cook good seafood for her. In the past few days, we had the most amazing Karaoke, German sausage nights together, and she decided to cook Polish food for me today as well.

She told me that they don’t do lunch, and normally they eat breakfast at 11am, then have a late afternoon big dinner, then have a small sandwich at night. This is Polish food culture. It was quite weird, but weird because we get used of three time meal system.

Karolina cooked a slow-cook beef with wild mushroom with some polish rice, and drink was butter-milk (sour yogurt) together. It was beautiful and they normal eat with a big portion as well. It was lovely to try some real Polish food without travelling there. That’s why I love living in different places, because you always meet some wonderful people from all over the world.

I am a lucky girl who always meet gorgeous people. It was the best few days in Leeds with all my friends together.

King Prawn & Crab Stick Noodle Soup

Back home, when it’s Chinese New Year, our family tradition always have seafood hot-pot because Shantou is near coastal city. Seafood for us is everyday basic food. Basically you just have a chicken stock as the soup base or just water, and put any seafood and meat into soup, then at the end, you put more vegetable and noodle in, and simple as that.

Mum used to cook that when she was a little bit lazy and didn’t want to fuss to cook a proper meal. I always like that and it takes about 2 minutes to have a noodle soup on the tablet with fresh seafood and ingredient.

Ingredient: 1 fresh chicken stock /cube, seafood or left over food, 1-2 lettuce, some coriander and noodle or dumplings. Season is salt and white pepper.

Boil the chicken stock, (add some water depends how do you like) put the seafood in for 2 minutes, then noodle in for 1 minutes, add lettuce at last with coriander, season it with salt and white pepper. Job done, really to warm you up with fresh seafood and noodle soup. The soup will be tasty, fresh and noodle will fill you up as well Simple dish for cold winter!

After a big meal, traditionally we always drink some GongFu tea to digest our food and fattiness. Health and you can talk to friends all night long while you are sharing the tea culture.

German Market (Christkindelmarkt)

Karolina and I decided to go to the German Market to eat some sausages and beer in Millennium Square in Leeds City Centre. Christkindelmarkt is open daily from Friday 12 November until Sunday 19 December 2010. The market and funfair opens daily from 10.30am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and 10.30am to 8pm on Sundays. The ‘Frankfurter Scheune’ bierkeller and selected stalls open late until 11pm.

It was not that big but it was fun and we ate sausages, beer, potato pancakes, roast chestnut, and strawberries white chocolate and some candy. I think we were done pretty well. We had a lot of laugh and fun even it was a cold night. Food price is from £2.5-£4. Good atmosphere and fun to have a night out with your friends.