Tuk Tuk Thai - knock, knock ...

Tuk Tuk Thai was an interesting Thai restaurant with pretty decors.     It's been opened in our neighborhood for a few years now.   Out of curiosity, we visited the restaurant.    We ordered the usual 'must' for visiting the authentic restaurant - Tom Yum Goong soup as the tester.    We ordered everything at THAI spicy.     The soup was spicy hot and tasted good.   The spicy fried fish - Pla Nam Pla Wan  was bit disappointing, it's suppose to be the Orange Roughy - deep fried topped with a sweet and spicy tamarind sauce.     But I was very sure that it tasted like catfish.    I have eaten catfish many times before to know the difference.    Perhaps they decided to serve us the Pri Tak Oan instead - fresh deep fired catfish with young pepper corn and fresh basil.... but naaa, it has tamarind sauce, so, I think they decided to switch on the fish - unannounced.       Not so sure about the pineapple used for the Pineapple fried rice - fresh or reused?     Oh well, least the soup was good.    But would have enjoyed it more if the fish tasted like orange roughy.

2012 - Stockton Asparagus Festival

It was really fun visiting Stockton's 2012 Asparagus Festival, and viewed the Asparagus eating contest first handed.      (Click on the image to view in larger format.)

 

 Serving with Smile!

Deep  Fried Asparagus with Tabasco Sauce and Parmesan Cheese.

 Any way you look at it, it weighs close to a pound - more Tabasco, please!

 Asparagus Eating Contestant's Feast Table

 The Contestants

 The Asparagus Crown

 Faces - to be a Champ

 

 

 

  I think the Woo Long  tea would have been better to cut all the grease!

 & Finally, the 2012 Asparagus Champ!

OO Butter Croissants

 Croissants should be made with butter, and butter is what makes the croissants.     This particular croissants, however, has extra lite Olive Oil raw roux and butter as my test for the alternative to the full butter block croissants.    In the past experiments, a pound of butter is used to make the butter block.    Since then, I have learned to make croissants with half pound or less butter.     One of the reason is the home oven.     It behaves differently than the commercial convection oven, and all the butter are just melting out of the croissants.    The croissants turned out flaky outside.    Inside layer texture is replaced by bread crumb like texture.   As for the taste, it could use half to three-quarter stick more of the butter.    The silpat remained quite clean without a puddle of melted butter wasted.
(Click on the image to view in separate window)