All About Momos.

Our recent stay in Australia gave us several opportunities to taste the local cuisine, mainly cafe food, and we found it a delight.  The ingredients are always fresh and have wonderful flavour. The breads are crisp and light - no doughy white sandwiches where we ate - just Turkish bread, thinner that ours here in NZ and covered in sesame seeds that positively crackle with flavour when toasted.

Where ever we chose to eat, in a shopping mall, or in a little sea-side bar, the standard was the same - generous portions,  fresh flavours and a minimum of mayo - just enough to add  interest  and to hold the ingredients together.  In the Robina Shopping Mall near Burleigh Heads, we had lunch at one of those cafes that are sited in the middle of the concourse.  The noise was abysmal and the crowds were huge, but we decided to eat there anyway.  We were so glad that we had done so.  We each ordered a "melt",  one with grilled chicken and basil pesto, one with chorizo, red onion and tomato and one with bacon, tomato and onion.  Naturally, each came with a topping of melted cheese and a small salad garnish.  Each was delicious,  with plenty of well-cooked topping and just the right amount of soft, tasty cheese oozing over it all.  Accompanied by a reasonable coffee, they were just right for a light lunch and in fact, we returned for the same a few days later.  So - hats off to Australian casual eateries.  They are great!

Making momos at Eumundi Markets in Queensland, Australia.

One of the most interesting new tastes for me was that of momos -  the dumplings of Tibet and Nepal.  We ate these at a large and extremely interesting  market we visited while up in North Queensland.  This market comes highly recommended and is held twice weekly in a small town called Eumundi.   This new food experience consisted of a  plate of Tibetan dumplings, stuffed with, among other things, organic tofu, carrot and cabbage. (You can see the complete list of ingredients on the board in the photograph.)  They were steamed or deep-fried (no residual oil, either) and were bursting with clean, uncomplicated flavours.


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Served with thick slices of crisp cucumber, soy,  and chilli dipping sauce they struck just the right note, in the heat,  for a casual lunch under the trees.  These are basically quite simple to put together and are a lot of fun make with your family. They can be made with any meat or as a vegetarian dish and each has its own charm. So suit your momos to your audience!  The video below, shows the basic method of making these tasty treats.

Tastes of India

Singing their hearts out!

Yesterday, we met friends and went into the city to celebrate the festival of Diwali with the Indian Community here.  It was such a fun occasion, with food and craft stalls and entertainment in a grand style.  There was a parade of models in beautiful saris and dramatic presentations in song, with handsome young men dressed in blindingly 'gold' costumes. 

The food stalls were interesting  with lots of deep fried offerings some of which were great.  We had some wonderful pea and potato samosas and  some memorable onion barjhees.  Vegetarian was the order of the day, of course as this was a festival, so no tandoor, unfortunately. This was not a place for dieters!

Something new to us, were the drinks called Falooda.  These were made by first dropping into a large tumbler about quarter of a cup of glass noodles, some red and green jelly, a small portion of ice-cream and a couple of spoons of  basil seeds, soaked in water over-night .  (This was weird stuff that looked like the spawn of some frog-like creature, but which, we were assured, was quite innocuous). A generous squeeze of rose syrup concentrate was then squirted around the sides of the glass which was then filled with rose milk. A meal in itself!

Gulaab Juman

 We were also interested to sample the products of the one stall selling sweetmeats such as gulaab jamun  which proved to be very sweet morsels, deep fried and saturated with sugar and oil. Not really my choice,  but they were surely selling well!  And we took the opportunity to purchase a piece of carrot cake and some chocolate cake from the Hare Krishna stall.  The carrot cake was great - moist and not too sweet - but with a great icing with lots of pumpkin seeds on top. The chocolate cake was made with wholemeal flour and I have never been able to make up my mind about that.  We used to do a wholemeal choc cake in Metro which was very popular, but personally, I think that with chocolate, I prefer full-on decadence with white flour and 'what the hell!'  

More on this event later, but we finished the day by travelling back to the Shore where we indulged in a wonderful cup of coffee in one of our local cafes.  Ahhhh - bliss!!!