Chocolate Bread Pudding Recipe

Several weekends ago, I made this pudding and brought it for after-meeting dessert for a small gathering for 20 people. Some people asked for the recipe, and so, here it is!

Chocolate Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

• 11"x7" baking dish -- lightly buttered
• 4-8 slices of bread -- toast until lightly crisp, then cut into large pieces

• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 cups of milk
• 1.5 bars of semisweet baking chocolate

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
• dry raisin as desired (optional)
• 1 tbsp confectioners' sugar (optional)
• Note: you can also use cinnamon-raisin bread instead of regular bread

Directions:

1. Scatter the bread pieces (and dry raisin) in the prepared baking dish.
2. In medium saucepan using low heat, combine milk, chocolate, and butter. Stir until chocolate has melted. Keep this mixture over low heat.
3. In another bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, and vanilla.
4. Pour the eggs mixture (and cinnamon powder) onto the warm milk mixture, and stir continuously until combined.
5. Pour the mixture over bread. Let sit, while you do no. 6.
6. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
7. Bake until pudding has puffed and is firm, about 30 minutes. (Well, the original recipe said 30 minutes, but in my case, it's closer to 40 minutes)
   
8. Cool at least 10 minutes, and dust with confectioners' sugar before serving

Notes:

• This pudding can be served warm, at room temperatur, or cold.
• To chill, let cool completely, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
• For variation, you can serve the pudding with fresh fruits on its side.

Enjoy! And happy baking!

Thai Tom (Seattle) - Probably the Best Thai Food in Seattle

Last week, my wife and I went to Seattle to meet with our family there. Then, we decided to go for lunch together. My wife was in the mood for Thai food and she suggested that we visited Chaiyo Thai restaurant. We have been to this restaurant before and their food were pretty good.

However, our cousin told us of a better Thai restaurant in town. That restaurant was always crowded, and usually there was a waiting time up to 15-20 min before we could even get in. The place was called Thai Tom, and we decided to give this restaurant a try.

Thai Tom Restaurant Menu

Surprisingly, the restaurant had a similar atmosphere as the Kintaro Ramen Restaurant in Downtown Vancouver. The place was fairly small and crowded. I would say that this was the most distinctive Thai Restaurant I have ever visited. The environment reminded me of restaurant in Asia. You could see the chefs cooking when sitting at the bar. One chef was preparing all the ingredients while the other one utilized the multiple burner to cook the food as shown in the following image.

Chefs were busy preparing customer's order

The best seat in this restaurant would be at the bar overlooking the fire from the stove. We ordered three items for the two of us. I order Pad Thai and my wife order Swimming Rama.

For side dish, we ordered Deep Fried Tofu with Peanut Sauce. The tofu was great, the skin was hard because it was deep fried, but the inside was still very soft. The peanut sauce was freshly prepared by the chef and it had a very unique delicious taste. The deep fried tofu was indeed top notch.

Deep Fried Tofu with Peanut Sauce

I purposely ordered Pad Thai, because I had tried it at multiple Thai restaurants and none had met my expectation to date. Hence, I wanted to know if this restaurant offered different Pad Thai that would suit my taste. True to our cousin's promotion, that was the best Pad Thai I have ever tasted, and I would definitely try it again next time I visit.

Tofu Pad Thai

My wife's order was Swimming Rama - rice with sautéed chicken and spinach poured with peanut sauce and peanut :) The chef used the same peanut sauce as the one on deep fried tofu. My wife loved her order.

Swimming Rama

For all menu, we were given the option to choose the level of spiciness, 1 to 5, 1 is the lowest, and 5 is the highest. In term of customer service, the waiter was not friendly at all. When we finally got a seat in the restaurant, the waiter asked us what we wanted to order, and if we couldn't tell her right then, she would give our place to other people. We were shocked, but we could stand it as long as the food was awesome (and it was!). We will visit this place again next time we go to Seattle.

Sop Konro Karebosi

Sop Konro is my most favorite food in Makassar. My favorite Konro restaurant is Sop Konro Karebosi located at Jl. Gunung Lompobattang to eat Sop Konro. Everyone in Makassar must know this restaurant. Karebosi is the name of big soccer field located near the restaurant.

Sop Konro Karebosi with All Food They Offer

The main item for Konro is beef's ribs (Iga Sapi). We eat it with rice.

Sop Konro

Originally, the restaurant only offers Sop Konro and Kikil (Beef's Tendon), but about 8-10 years ago, their branch at Kelapa Gading, Jakarta, invented the new menu, BBQ Konro (Konro Bakar). They basically BBQ the ribs and pour special made peanut sauce on top of it. The BBQ Konro also comes with soup on the side.

Konro Bakar

The meat's tenderness plays crucial role in determining how good the Konro is. I have tried Konro at several other restaurant, they are not as tender as the one sold by Sop Konro Karebosi. If you have chance to visit Makassar, Konro is a must try food.

Soto Banjar Jalan Sangir

During my last visit in Makassar, I got chance to visit Soto Banjar located at Jalan Sangir. The restaurant does not sell Soto Banjar only, but it also sells other type of food. We decided to order the following items.

Gado-Gado (Indonesian Salad)

Gado-Gado is usually referred as Indonesian Salad. It is made of various vegetables poured with peanut sauce. My wife loves Gado-Gado at this restaurant because it does not use bean sprout and it also contains tempe (i.e. fermented soy bean) and tofu.

Nasi Rawon (Rawon Rice)

Nasi Campur (Mix Rice)

My dad ordered Nasi Rawon. The item came with rice, sambal goreng, cucumber, abon, and a bowl of Rawon meat soup. My wife ordered Nasi Campur; the rice came with more items compare to Nasi Rawon. Her Nasi Campur also came with a bowl of Rawon meat soup. I believe Makassar is the only city in Indonesia that sells Nasi Campur with Rawon meat soup.

Soto Banjar

My mom and I ordered Soto Banjar. It contains chicken meat, egg, noodle, lontong, and perkedel. The taste is similar to Soto Ayam, but Soto Ayam has stronger spices. I accidentally put too much chily on my soup and it's pretty hard to describe the original taste. However, I like it and I will definitely visit this place again in the future.

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang (Ujung Pandang Wonton Noodle)

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang is one of my favorite food in Makassar. It is usually consumed as breakfast. Various Pangsit Mie's restaurants in Makassar are opened very early in the morning (i.e. ~6 am) . In my recent trip to Makassar, Pangsit Mie is one of the food that I tried alot. Different restaurants offer different taste and I love them all.

Pangsit Mie consists of BBQ pork, steam chicken, and wonton (i.e. pangsit). Some places serve only steam wonton while others serve both steam and friend wonton. It is also served with one bowl of soup. Some people like mixing the soup with the noodle. I am a bit different, I eat the noodle and the meat first then drink the soup and eat all the wonton at the end.

Enough explanation, following is picture of Pansit Mie. It is taken at Pansit Mie Singapore Restaurant (i.e. located Jl Lombok).

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang

I wish I can cook it myself so I can still consume while living in Canada :)

Ikan Bakar Dinar

This time, I will talk about different seafood restaurant that I visited last week, Dinar Restaurant. Dinar Restaurant is a larger restaurant compare to Apong in term of size. It has 2 branches in Makassar. Due to its large building size, one can reserve a VIP room if needed.

In term of taste, it is good. In term of fish, it also has wide variety of fresh fish. In term of how the fish is cooked, most restaurant have pretty much the same style. The main difference is usually on the chili sauce ingredient. For this reason, I prefer Apong restaurant. However, if you prefer larger restaurant size and more comfortable dining experience, I'll suggest Dinar restaurant.

This time, we ordered a lot because all of us haven't eaten yet. Let's start with the first item, Sito's Shrimp (Udang Sito). You can figure out the size by looking at the following pictures; it is almost impossible to find shrimp this size in Canada.

Sito's Shrimp

Size Comparison

Sito`s Shrimp, smaller size

The next shrimp we had is fairly unique, it looks like lobster, but it is called Udang Kipas, not really sure how I should translate it to English. Direct translation of Kipas to English is fan, but Fan`s Shrimp sounds weird. Anyway, the taste of this shrimp is awesome.

Udang Kipas

The following fish is called Ikan Bolu in Makassar and Ikan Banden in other cities of Indonesia. The fish has a lot of bones, I don`t like it that much, I only like its ja`nna (i.e. fish`s belly).

Ikan Bolu or Ikan Bandeng

We also ordered two type of fishes that used Palape sauce. I forgot the name of the fish. I will update once I get the answer.

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We also ordered Ikan Sunu goreng, another name for Ikan Kerapu or Cod in English. Goreng means deep fried as you can see at the following picture.

Ikan Sunu Goreng (Deep Fried Cod)

Green Mussle with Padang sauce (Kerang Saus Padang) is another item we ordered. The sauce is a bit spicy and rich of flavour.

Green Mussle with Padang Sauce (Kerang Saus Padang)

Last seafood item we order is the following Boiled Fish (Ikan Tim) that I cannot identify as well.

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Last, we always have vegetables to complement all the seafood we had. This time we order the favorite veggie, Stir Fried Kankung (Kangkung Cah Polos).

Stir Fried Kankung (Kankung Cah Polos)

That's all for that day, another nice day :) Overall, the food are fresh and cooked nicely. It is nice to live in Makassar, you can eat seafood like a king.

Ikan Bakar Apong (BBQ Fish Apong)

Apong Seafood restaurant is fairly new seafood restaurant in Makassar, compare to the other seafood restaurant, but the restaurant has good popularity among people in Makassar. The reason is that it always has very fresh fish and you can find a lot of weird and delicious fish here as well. There is a story that one of the reason why this restaurant always has new fish. The story said that the owner of the restaurant has very close relation with one of the police inspector in Makassar; hence, the restaurant has a very good connection with the fish supplier.

Enough history, let's get to the food. This time, we did not order much items, because I am kind of half full before going to this restaurant. When I first arrived, we have to choose the fish by yourself and tell the server how you want the fish cooked; BBQ, Boiled with your choice of spice. In Makassar, we love chili, so the restaurant always gives various ingredient for creating our own chili sauce. You can see the ingredient in the following pictures.

Chili Ingredient

My Chili Sauce

For appetizer in all seafood restaurant in Makassar, they serve Otak-Otak (it's fish meat wrap in banana leaves). I love otak-otak, in addition to its good taste, I always used it to test to my chili sauce, to check if I need to add more ingredients or to check if it's spicy enough.

Otak-Otak

Every time I go to seafood restaurant, I always order BBQ Squid (Cumi Cumi Bakar), it is a must for me :) You have two options on how it's BBQ-ed: with the black ink or not. At that time, I choose the one with no ink as you can see at the following picture. Some people like it with the ink because they said it's more healthy; I don't know the reason why. Beware when you ordered Cumi-Cumi Bakar, some restaurant give a very small squid, you should check how big it is before putting order. At this place, the squid is big enough even though it's not as big as squid in Canada.

Cumi-Cumi Bakar

The other fish we ordered is boiled rock cod (Ikan Tim Kerapu Tikus). It's pretty hard to get this type of fish; therefore, the price is expensive. However, in Makassar, it is still much cheaper compare to other big cities in Indonesia, such as Jakarta or Surabaya. You can taste its freshness by feeling how soft its meat felt in your mouth. We had a very fresh one.

Boiled Rock Cod (Ikan Tim Kerapu Tikus)

The last fish we ordered is BBQ Manggali Fish (Ikan Bakar Manggali). It is BBQ-ed, cut into half, poured with Palape sauce (it's garlic, chili, and other special ingredient that I am not sure). At Apong, the Palape sauce did not taste as good as the other restaurant I have tried, and they only gave very small amount as you can see at the following image. The fish is good, the complaint is only on the sauce. It did not taste bad but it's not good enough.

BBQ Manggali Fish (Ikan Bakar Manggali)

When eating fish, it has been tradition that we will also order at least one type of vegetables (Sayur). Normally, I order Kangkung (Ong Choy), but this time, I order Cai Sin, I am not sure what the english translation of this veggie. You can see the image and find it out :)

Cai Sin Veggie (Sayur Cai Sin)

Ok that's it for now, very full, I went home afterward and fell asleep. Last week, I got chance to go to other seafood restaurant with my wife-to-be's family. I will post some photos once I had time :)