What's a fella gotta do?

I was pretty excited about finally getting to Tom Phat. This cafe has had mixed reviews amongst the breakfasterati but for some reason I'd never made it down to check it out myself.

They do a kind of cafe/Thai/Viet thang with the usual eggs, corn fritters, muesli and then some kind of pan-Asian stuff - a breakfast that comes with a pork chop and rice, eggs with roti etc. The lunch and dinner menus look more Thai influenced with pad thai, curries and soups.

I deliberated a lot - of course it's my first time there and I want to try everything. I went for the Eggs Fried Viet-style which were listed as fried with soy and chilli. There was definitely a lot of soy and a lot of fried. Some good coriander action and some slices of a big chilli were visible. I enjoyed the crazy oily nature of it all.

The only sad bit was when I asked for some extra chilli and was told they only had sweet chilli. I hate sweet chilli but what made it worse was I could see jars of one of my favourite chillis (Crunchy Grandma brand) on the shelves! For display only, I was told! Oh, what do I have to do to get some chilli action in a place trading on its hip Asian credentials.

Well the coffee was Coffee Supreme which means organic, fair trade and good. I guess you don't get that at Huy Huy.

i am so ready for this jelly

Remember how I love the teahouse known as Ten Ren Tea Time?

Well now I have finally tried their tea jelly I really really loved Ten Ren. On Sunday they outdid themselves. I was feeling pretty wack after all the flying nuns, creepy impersonators and dead sheep of Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely. And I was finding it hard to deal with the complete contempt that the waiter showed for any notion of serving us. But the fake fish was extra good in smaller crispier pieces and
oh
my
god
the
TEA
JELLY!!!!

We had the green tea version and it comes with something like honey drizzled on top in a balloon glass and it is so so so good. The tea flavour is pretty subtle, the texture is nice and solid, definitely agar agar. It was so good that afterwards we went straight to the Great Eastern Grocery to buy agar agar so that tonight I can try and make my own. Yum.

Did I mention I love my garden. Oh yeah, I did. But this is winter and after a week sick in bed at the ranch hospital (thanks guys) it was so good to come home and have my garden feed me.

The chicory is a special red stemmed one that I am in love with - mild enough for salads. The daikon is gonna be kim chi because my last lot went (shock) mouldy. The sprouting Calabrese broccoli makes me very very happy - I've never had this much brassica luck before. And yes, rocket galore.

We had a simple onion broth with agnolotti and broccoli, lots of fresh parsley and parmesan. And salad of course. The red shines so well under dressing.