Hello all, it's been a while, hasn't it? It's been a hectic year and my food mojo has done a runner. However, I've come to realise that it's the little things, the comforting things, that make you appreciate what you have....
Books featuring descriptions of food often leave me drooling. In fact, what you read about in books are often more mouthwatering than the real thing. I still remember dreaming about the 'ices' which the Famous Five used to scoff down in the...
Crab. Now who doesn't have a thing for crab? Sri Lanka is a tiny island hanging off the tip of southeast India where there is an abundance of juicy seafood. People probably eat more fish than meat. And yet, it's...
I know it's been almost two months since I visited Bangkok, but I didn't want to deprive y'all of the wonder that is Thai sweets and desserts. So here's a quick run down of the sugary delights we sampled in Bangkok. Us folk...
One of my favourite Thai dishes is som tum, the spicy green papaya salad so prevalent in Northern Thai or Isaan cuisine. I used to love it as a kid, and I love it even more as an adult although sometimes my...
One of the main things I look forward to whenever I visit Thailand is to be able to eat Thai steamboat or Thai suki (hot pot) at Coca, a restaurant which has been going strong for the last 50 years and is now a...
Umamimart is celebrating 5 years this month with a celebration of noodles and how delightful that I get to talk to you all about one of my favourites: bah mee nahm (Thai noodle soup). When I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, from the...
Aaaah, one of the things I really miss in London is a good bowl of ramen. Now that we've got a brilliant udon-ya for keeps, the next big thing will hopefully be ramen. Unlike in the States, we only have a...
One of my favourite foods is South East Asian cuisine. I confess I wasn't much of a fan of noodles when I was a child living in Bangkok (I know, what was I thinking?), preferring fried rice over anything else. That's...
Although I haven't been fortunate enough to visit the country, Turkey has always held a fascination for me. It's long and complex history, the bridge between East and West, the mixing of cultures, languages and religion not to mention the souks and...
This summer has been a whirl of social engagements, what with friends visiting, me visiting friends and everyone congregating in London. And to crown it all, my friends and I decided to go to Oktoberfest in Munich. Lucky for us, two...
Yorkshire, two and half hours by train up north from London, is where one of my dear friends lives with her family. Although her family are originally from India, she's a proper Yorkshire lass, born and raised there before coming down...
Summer this year is a total washout in wet, gray and windy London, so we decided to cheer ourselves up by going and scoffing some afternoon tea. All lady-like and dainty, of course. Not really. We prepared ourselves by skipping...
One of the surprising things about London is that you can get very good, cheap Thai food in pubs. My friends and I call them Thai pubs, but they're just normal pubs serving Thai food cooked by Thai chefs instead of...
When I was but a spring chicken who had just graduated from university, I went on a backpacking trip to Italy with one of my friends. It was hot, we were young and Italy was a marvelous cacaphony of ancient ruins, art...
We've been very lucky. Since last summer, we've had a bona fide udon-ya (shop) right here in London. Serving sanuki udon (a type of udon from the Kagawa region of Japan) that is prepared in-house, Koya boasts chefs that...
My sister is married to a wonderful man, whose mother also happens to be an exceptional cook. As a Malaysian diplomat's wife, the prime minister preferred her cooking to going out to...
One of the best things about living in a multicultural and cosmopolitan city like London is that if you fancy something to eat, you can be sure to find it (...except for proper ramen, that is). Compared to twenty years ago...
My family and I went on a flying visit to Paris again to rendez-vous with my dad (since he managed not to get his UK visa in time--visa people suck). Last year I gave him a copy of Ernest Hemingway's memoir...
As you may all know, I'm half-Japanese and half-Sri Lankan, so anything to do with either country sparks an immediate interest. So when I began hearing rumours about a new Japanese cake shop and tea salon springing up in...
