Category Archives: Food

Melbourne: a Vietnamese food mecca, and when I get my Vietnamese food/bakery fix

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Over the last ten years, I’ve been really excited to see how modern Vietnamese restaurants have spread throughout New York City. Most of these spots are owned and operated by second and third generation Vietnamese Americans who saw the lack of really good Vietnamese options in this great city, and wanted to solve for that. While I love these restaurants, they unfortunately have not filled in the gap for Vietnamese bakeries. The mere concept of “Vietnamese bakery” is very, very foreign in New York City, which is odd given how diverse the population there is. The closest thing I have seen to a “Vietnamese bakery” in terms of selection of both (“Asian sweet”) sweet and savory options would be Banh Mi Co Ut. But the selection is relatively small, and frankly, it’s quite pricey given the small portion sizes. When I pick up something like banh da lon (Vietnamese pandan, coconut, and mung bean steamed layer cake) or banh gio (a savory steamed cake made of rice, quail egg, seasoned pork, mushroom), whatever I get is meant as a little snack for one person; it’s not really meant to be shared given the small size. But the thing is — Vietnamese food is like the majority of Asian foods: they are meant to be shared; Vietnamese people don’t usually order a la carte unless it’s banh mi or a bowl of noodle soup. So this always felt a bit awkward for me when I’d pick up one thing at Banh Mi Co Ut and know I’d inevitably have to split up what was already a small portion.

Well, Melbourne’s Vietnamese options are not lacking in the slightest. In fact, it’s probably one of the most diverse places when it comes to ALL Asian food in the entire world. Melbourne has not one, not two, but THREE Vietnamese neighborhoods for you to choose from: Springvale, Richmond, and Footscray. Our favorite area that Chris has been taking me to since year one of my coming down under for Christmas (that is 2012 — 13 years ago!!) is Springvale. I love the sheer variety of restaurants, hole-in-the-walls, the multiple shopping centers filled with little eateries, shops, bakeries, butchers, fresh foods, prepared foods. It feels like a more modern version of the markets you see in Vietnam. Granted, we usually go back to the same places at least once each visit (Bun Bun Bakery for banh mi is our all-time favorite and must-visit; HS Cakes is our beloved bakery for durian cakes, crepes, and ice cream — this is also where one of Kaia’s 1st birthday cakes came from – durian cake!)), but we also try to check out new spots to branch out. So it ends up being a mini food crawl while there.

Today, we started at Bun Bun Bakery and shared a bbq pork and mixed ham roll (“mixed ham roll” is essentially the traditional Vietnamese banh mi that has all the cold cuts, plus the usual fixings of Viet mayo, pate, pickled daikon/carrot, cilantro, chilies). Then we walked through the Springvale shopping centers to explore all the local fresh fruit, and we ended up sampling and hauling home 1.5 kilos of super plump, bright pink lychees, and another kilo of huge, fat passion fruits. Kaia got to admire different vendors in the shopping center stuff banh mi to order. I also stumbled upon a huge stand called Ben Thanh Hot Bread and Cakes, where my eyes immediately gravitated toward the fried sesame balls stuffed with mashed, lightly sweetened mung bean (it’s the Vietnamese equivalent of the Chinese jian dui). I picked up one of these for $2 since Chris doesn’t really care about these, and I figured Kaia might just have a bite (and this sesame ball was super fresh – the texture was deceptively light and airy, and the outside was so crispy!). But then, I saw that there were multiple pre-packaged containers of my favorite banh da lon, which Kaia also enjoys. And unlike at Banh Mi Co Ut, this container had four fat slices! I asked the vendor how much it was, and she told me it was $6.50 AUD. That’s just over $1 USD/slice! I felt like I had hit the jackpot!

So I paid for the banh da lon container, and we parked ourselves at a little bench inside the shopping center so that Kaia and I could enjoy them. I showed her the container and asked her what it was, and she immediately recognized it and went crazy.

“I want it! I want it!” Pookster said over and over again with the most eager-beaver grin on her face. Kaia practiced daintily peeling the layers apart and then not-so-daintily stuffed them into her mouth.

These banh da lon slices were so luxurious. They were so soft that it was clear to me these cakes were freshly steamed that morning. The layers peeled easily from each other, so it’s also just a fun thing to eat. The fragrant pandan and coconut, the nutty and creamy mung bean layer, the fun glutinous rice texture — these slices were just perfect. The ones at Banh Mi Co Ut – annoyingly it’s unclear how “fresh” they are because when they give it to you, it’s pretty hard (that’s a sign they were refrigerated or even frozen). And so they advise you to microwave it for about 30 seconds when you’re ready to eat it.

We also stopped by a very popular and casual Malaysian restaurant for some quick drinks and roti canai and roti telur, then picked up some taro ice cream for the road from HS Cakes. Everything was delicious. But I will admit that for me personally, the biggest food highlight of the day was that Ben Thanh bakery stand stop (I still loved Bun Bun very much, though, so I hope they aren’t offended). I got two items from there, and both were 10/10 for freshness, tastiness/quality, and value. I think Kaia would also agree with me. I am definitely adding that bakery stand to my regular rotation for all future visits!

I will always love Vietnamese bakery foods and have a soft spot in my heart (and belly) for them. But of the places we go to regularly, Melbourne, and specifically, Springvale, is really the main place where I can get my fix for these cravings. Just the mere sight of these items being available always makes my eyes glimmer.

Le Creuset enameled cast iron – lives up to the hype!

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Last night after I hand washed my brand new 3.5-quart Le Creuset braiser with dual lid/grill pan, I decided to use it right away to cook the Italian fennel and pork sausage and mushrooms I was preparing for our pasta today. After briefly heating it up, I added some oil and the sausage to the pan and sautéed it for a bit. I was admiring the little handles on the sides of the braiser and thought I would tap the handle to see how hot it was, and WOW! Even after just a couple minutes on the stove, the handle was nearly burning hot! My Amazon Basics 5-quart Dutch oven, which I’ve had for 7-plus years now, doesn’t get anywhere as hot that quickly (to be fair, that dutch oven cost Chris’s aunt and uncle at the time about $35, and Le Creuset pots and pans usually go for $300+). I guess Le Creuset really does what it’s famous for, which is conducting heat well, evenly, and quickly. I think this brand really does live up to the hype so far. It also seems extremely easy to clean. This is like my new baby now that I have to love and take care of very well! Similar to Kaia being my only human baby, this braiser is my only Le Creuset item, so I need to take extra, extra special care of it.

Warm chocolate vs. hot chocolate in Denmark

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One small thing I noticed that I found interesting at coffee shops and cafes around Copenhagen was that when you see hot drinks listed, and there is an option for chocolate, it is not listed as “hot chocolate” but rather as “warm chocolate.” I’ve never seen this before anywhere else we’ve ever traveled. And when you order it, it is exactly as the description says: it actually is warm and not hot. We had this a few times, and every time, it was most definitely warm, so an easy drinking temperature without the need to wait or blow on the drink to cool it down and not burn ourselves. This would not bode well for Chris’s mom, who loves her drinks nearly boiling hot, but it does work well for people like me who are a bit heat-sensitive. However, even for myself, I would say that I’d like the drinks hotter than “warm,” so that I could comfortably take small quick sips.

This is not the case for other drinks, though. When we’ve ordered coffee, they’ve either been hot or warm; this has not been consistent. All the glogg / gluhwein we’ve had at the Christmas markets has been piping hot with bits of raisins and toasted slivered almonds waiting to be eaten on the bottom.

Den Gamle By and ableskiver in Aarhus

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Since Denmark is the home of LEGO, we knew we wanted to visit LEGO House in Billund, Denmark. The only issue is that Billund pretty much just has LEGO House, Legoland, and a bunch of offices, so there really isn’t much for tourists to do there that is not LEGO related. So Chris decided to book us a day trip to Aarhus, have us stay in Vejle, and then we’d take a convenient bus to Billund Town Centre and walk a couple minutes to LEGO House. In Aarhus, we visited Den Gamle By (“The Old Town”), which is an open-air town museum focused on town culture across five centuries. They are all decorated in the original historical style, and given we came during Christmas time, they had a lot of festive Christmas exhibits on display. We got to see some displays of elves making toys, as well as see lots of vintage Christmas decorations that were of the time (early 1900s), including the tradition to hang cut-out climbing elves around the living room. There were also some fun indoor and outdoor play areas for littles to run and climb around, including some festive rides and games. Kaia really enjoyed these.

While at Den Gamle By, we also got to enjoy our first ableskiver while in Denmark. The one time I’d previously had these was when I was in Solvang, California, as a child. My parents took me there on a mini vacation; while my dad was not very interested in travel outside of California or the country, he did seem to know quite a lot about little towns all over California. He told us that Solvang had a large Danish population and was known as “Little Denmark” in California. And if you visit, you’d understand why immediately. The entire town looks like a little European village, complete with its own Danish windmill. And at every cafe and corner, you can get your hands on some freshly made, piping hot ableskiver, which are basically like “pancake puffs/balls” made in a cast iron pan. This results in the ableskiver having a really delicious, crunchy outside, with a hot, spongy, pillowy soft inside. They are usually served with jam and powdered sugar. I got some from a little stand inside Den Gamle By where they were making fresh and HUGE ones. I watched the workers fill the round ball-shaped pans over and over with more and more batter, constantly turning them to ensure a deep brown, crunchy crust. The ones they were making here were far larger than anything I could recall seeing in Solvang. And when we ate them — yum. It was so satisfying — crunchy on the outside and almost burn-your-mouth-hot and soft on the inside. I may never want to make them myself (or invest money into buying an ableskiver — or, banh khot/takoyaki — pan), but I will remember these balls of deliciousness as a highlight of our Danish eating.

Danish smorrebrod, pastries, and fancy eats

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I’ll be honest and say that when we booked this Thanksgiving week trip to Denmark, food wasn’t really the first thing I was getting excited about. I was eager to see Danish design and architecture. I was definitely looking forward to the Danish Christmas markets. The canals always intrigued me and looked quite picturesque. But when it came to the food, my first thought was that I’d really look forward to trying Danish pastries (cardamom buns!), but given we’re traveling with a young child, any type of Nordic tasting menu (a la the former Noma) would be completely off the table for us. When I did ChatGPT searches on food in Denmark, the first result was smorrebrod, or Danish style open-faced sandwiches, usually made with buttered rye bread and a variety of different toppings. The most common toppings include pickled herring, roast beef, shrimp with egg, potato with mayonnaise and chives.

Just think about that: the first thing that came up was…. sandwiches. Unless it’s a banh mi, no sandwich is ever going to get me that excited — ever. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the food. I had zero doubt the freshness and quality would be high. But none of this sounded like food that I’d ever crave or dream about. Plus, smorrebrod is typically always eaten cold. I do not want cold food while in cold weather. That does not sound comforting or like the Danish idea of “hygge” (coziness) that I was envisioning.

Plus, eating, simply being in Denmark is expensive. A case in point for something simple at a Christmas market: it didn’t matter if we were in France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, or Switzerland, but when we’d get a mug of gluhwein (spiced mulled wine), it would usually be about 3-5 Euros. Here in Denmark at the markets we’ve been to, the cost of glogg (their version of gluhwein) is 60-80 DKK (or the equivalent of $9.20-12.43 USD). Smorrebrod you can buy can range anywhere from about $12-25 USD depending on how fancy the ingredients are. It’s fine for us to stomach it for a week given our time here is limited, but it was hard not to compare this to our previous European Christmas market travels.

The pastries we’ve had here have all been delicious and meticulously made, but I had that expectation in my head (and wondered how many pastries we’d end up eating by the time this trip was over). The cardamom bun was just as indulgent and delicious as I’d previously had versions of in New York; the chocolate scone Kaia enjoyed on our second day was light, airy, fluffy, with high quality bits of dark chocolate throughout. We’d also enjoyed an amazing pistachio cream croissant where the “cream” just felt like blended pistachios. And the spandauer, the most iconic Danish pastry, we enjoyed was airy and shattered on contact, with a vanilla custard that was deceptively light.

I will say that the first proper sit-down dinner we had at Kodbyens 2009 Fiskebar was very impressive, and definitely left us feeling Noma-esque vibes about the way the food was presented. Before the meal even officially began, we were presented with a plate of two massive, fat chunks of very crusty, freshly made sourdough bread, served with a little bowl of whipped seaweed butter (tinted green from the seaweed). We ordered a plate of mussels cooked in cream, “plenty of herbs” as the menu said, and Kaia devoured almost the entire serving on her own. The really interesting thing was that the grilled whole fish we ordered came with two sides that were pretty notable in their presentation. The “side of mashed potatoes” was whipped, then bruleed on the top. The side “salad” was injected with a bubbling white-tinted dressing, then drizzled with a herby green oil. Both of them looked like dishes that were inspired by Noma. The fish itself was perfectly cooked; overall, it was an amazing meal with some little surprises. But this meal definitely made me think about Copenhagen and how it’s become world renowned for “New Nordic” cuisine.

Kaia, the voracious and good eater

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I went to Kaia’s school for their annual Thanksgiving lunch today. All the parents pitched in money, and the teachers and staff put together quite a feast for us. The staff bought a delicious roast turkey with gravy and made numerous sides, including mac and cheese, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, stuffing, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, creamed corn, corn bread, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon rolls. I didn’t realize that all the food other than the turkey would be made either at home by the staff and teachers, or on site at the school. It was really sweet to see that the staff went to all this effort just for us.

While the parents and kids were all sitting together eating, I was chatting with some of the other parents when I realized that Kaia had actually stolen all the broccoli off my plate as I was talking. One of the other parents also noticed this, and he exclaimed, “Wow, Kaia is such a good eater! Look at all the broccoli and cauliflower she just ate! She even just stole all of her mom’s broccoli!”

I smiled. My little Pookie stole all my broccoli. I was totally fine with that. Kaia had quite the appetite at lunch today. Of course, she indulged in her little treat, which were the “veggie sticks” that everyone likes. She dug into the turkey first on her own, then the broccoli and cauliflower, and then the mashed potato and stuffing. Unfortunately, Kaia wasn’t too keen on the sweet potato mash and told me to eat it. She cleared almost her entire plate, minus the mashed sweet potato, cinnamon roll, and some mysterious brownie-like thing that her teacher put on her plate. If you compared the plates across all the kids in 3K and 4K, you could definitely see that Kaia not only ate the most food, but she had the largest variety of food.

“It’s amazing that she eats so much, and she eats all her vegetables,” another parent said to me. “My kid basically just eats carbs, meat, and chocolate!”

I am fully aware of my child and all that she is and does. Even if I didn’t get comments like this as often as I do, I still feel very proud of my Kaia Pookie all the time. Since she was a baby, she’s always been very curious about everything, especially food, embracing new foods and digging in. I can only hope that it continues. I love that she eats a large variety of the same foods that Chris and I eat, and I never feel like I need to make her something different (what work that would be!!). It always makes me so proud. Today, seeing her eat this really well rounded meal on her own just made me feel like I was nearly bursting with pride. All the work I put into her baby-led weaning/early feeding days is most definitely paying off. I loved every moment of that work (when can we say that about any “work” we do?), and I still fondly (with an extreme amount of nostalgia) go back to my video memories of those days, encouraging her to eat and try new foods as a little wee baby. That little baby is not so little anymore.

Our neighbor friend also remarked the day that she stopped by a few weeks ago and saw Kaia eating dinner in her high chair how amazed she was at the sheer variety of food she was eating and what was on her plate. She said she could only dream of her son eating the way that Kaia did.

My Kaia Pookie is setting examples. I just love it.

So much chicken stock, what to do?

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“This fridge is packed!” Chris said earlier this week after opening our fridge and inspecting the contents. “Are these all just ingredients, or is this stuff we can actually eat?”

Our fridge usually has a lot of food in it, but oftentimes, it’s mostly raw fruit and vegetables, condiments and sauces (homemade and store-bought), different milks, yogurt, and Chris’s stockpiling of kombucha. This week, though, since I just emptied out my vegetable scrap and bone bag from the freezer, we have a lot of jars of my homemade, gelatinous stock, aka bone broth. I can assure you that this is most definitely “bone broth” — it jiggles with so much collagen that it’s almost like jell-o after cooled in the fridge.

I originally was going to use the bulk of it for a butternut squash green curry soup, but then Chris insisted that we have chicken green curry this week, and I didn’t want to double up on the green curry flavorings because it would be redundant. I had to noodle around in my endless recipe bookmarks to come up with inspiration because I couldn’t readily come up with any ideas on my own that would be simple. Since I am trying to use up what we have and not buy anything net-new unless it’s a fruit or vegetable given our remaining time here in 2025 is so limited, I need to focus on what I already have, whether it’s in the fridge, freezer, or pantry. So I decided to pivot to something lighter and quicker: Vietnamese butternut squash soup with ground pork, also known as canh bi do nau thit bam. More traditionally, the squash would be kabocha, but I just cut up my big 4.5-pound butternut squash, so I used that. I defrosted a bit of ground pork and tossed that in with aromatics before adding the butternut squash cubes and the gelatinous stock. I guess what really makes this “Vietnamese” is that it’s seasoned with fish sauce and then finished with chopped cilantro, and a lot of it.

The art and appreciation of cooking seems to be dying in my generation. People like my friend in New Jersey and I are like rare breeds. We value homemade, from scratch, from source foods. We view the time we invest into cooking as time invested in our overall health, well-being, and happiness. We don’t look at ready-made or restaurant food as better or superior. This soup is humble, but it’s satisfying, tasty, and homely. We need more of this kind of dish in our lives.

Cottage cheese as the new high protein food trend that I am not that into

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Before this year, the only time I ever really embraced cottage cheese was for German style cheesecake. Growing up, I remember my dad would make it once a year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I’d always sit there and watch or help him make it. Real German style cheesecake is made with quark cheese, but given that quark was not readily available in the U.S. then (and barely is now), the closest substitute easily available here is cottage cheese. It takes ages to break up the cottage cheese curds, and you need a high powered mixer to do it, but I always loved it when we got to the final step and got the cake batter silky smooth.

Cottage cheese suddenly rose in popularity this year because of everyone’s obsession with increasing their protein intake (and yes, I admittedly fall into this camp as of late). It’s considered the latest “hack” to increase protein in one’s diet, and it’s been showing up in endless different recipes. I’ve even seen it in some dosa and uttapam recipes! I finally decided I would try it out again, and I’d try using it in things like smoothies and pancakes. I figured that since Kaia likes pancakes, she wouldn’t mind it if I added cottage cheese to her pancakes.

Well, I was wrong. The cottage cheese made the pancakes more spongy, and she did not seem to appreciate this. She’d squish them in between her fingers and declare that she did not want to eat them, that she wanted ME to eat them. I’d have to cajole her to eat at least two before getting something else that she’d prefer. I tried three different recipe variations, some including pumpkin puree (because I like to add pumpkin to as many recipes as possible in the fall). Though I was able to mostly eliminate the sponginess she did not like, I found this to be far too much effort to continue attempting to use it. If trying to incorporate “healthy” or high protein ingredients into our diet ends up becoming more “work” than joy, then I don’t want to keep doing it. I have enough mental load, and this is not something I want to continue.

I finished the tiny bit of remaining cottage cheese in the fridge and mixed it into some just-cut pineapple. And even that felt like an effort for me. So, I’m declaring it now: No more cottage cheese in this house — unless I decide to make German style cheesecake.

New York City’s food scene, a new mayor-elect, and championing the “hidden gems” in lesser traveled to parts of the city

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Since the pandemic year, we’ve been using our Saturdays to explore the city we currently call home, traveling to a different neighborhood and borough each week to see what the vibe and food is like. Chris has kept a record of all our neighborhoods, which weekends we went where, and which restaurants and tiny stands we’ve visited. So, it was a bit fun to see that the new mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, had built his mayoral campaign around leaning into his love of food, foods and restaurants in areas of the city that the average New Yorker or tourist may not be readily willing to trek to on their own. He’s campaigned at bodegas in the Bronx, taken politicians and journalists to restaurants in Astoria and Jackson Heights, and even organized a city-wide scavenger hunt that included many small, family-owned businesses that make some of his favorite foods.

Mamdani is highlighting many under-the-radar food spots, and likely drawing more visitors to those businesses. This makes me happy to see — to see that we have a new mayor-elect who not only likes to eat and has a deep appreciation of food across cultures and boroughs, but also likes to go to lesser known spots. We love discovering new places, and then we also get excited when those lesser known amazing spots somehow get “discovered.” Chris likes to say that he’s been doing this since the pandemic, but alas, he does not have the same following that Mamdani has. What makes New York City special is not just the big-name, flashy, expensive restaurants, but the teeny tiny hole-in-the-walls representing cultures and countries from around the world, where the owners are simply trying to share some of their own culture’s food with the rest of us and make a living.

We really need someone to lead who has new ideas, who truly embraces diversity. All the endless cultures of New York City make it the very special city it is. So I think this is a welcome breath of fresh air in more ways than one. And I’ll be honest: I’m looking forward to seeing what else Mamdani is going to be eating along the way; I’ve already added a few of his favorites to my “to try” map list!

Granola vs. muesli vs. Bircher muesli

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Many many moons ago, or about 13 years ago, Chris was trying to get me up to speed on differences in food and speech between Australian and American culture. One of the things he taught me at the time, which I have since realized is factually incorrect, is that what Americans call “granola,” Australians and British people call “muesli.” Initially, given I had no reason to think he was wrong, I believed him. But then when going down the grocery aisle at a Cole’s or Woolworth’s in Australia, I thought it was odd that all the things labeled “muesli” just looked like a bunch of raw oats with some nuts and dried fruit mixed in. There’s no way that Australians actually ate raw oats on the regular, right? The body doesn’t digest raw oats as easily as cooked oats, so this just seemed odd to me.

My suspicions were later confirmed. As ChatGPT sums it up, these are the key differences between granola and muesli: At a high level, granola is baked, crunchy, and sweet. Muesli is raw, softer, and less sweet. They are not the same thing.

In more detail: granola is baked and made crunchy with oil and sweeteners like maple syrup or honey. People like me who enjoy (homemade) granola love the large crunchy chunks or clusters. There’s pretty much always some combination of oats, nuts and seeds in it. And it’s usually eaten with yogurt or milk in cereal. Sometimes, you can even just snack on it by hand as you would chips. Muesli, on the other hand, is always raw, soft/chewy when soaked with a loose texture, with little to no added sugar. The base is usually a combination of oats, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Muesli usually soaked overnight in milk/yogurt and eaten cold.

The concept of muesli comes from Bircher muesli, which was first created in Switzerland by Dr. Bircher-Benner. Bircher muesli has a lot in common with overnight oats, but tends to be heavier the emphasis on adding nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and also including yogurt (and sometimes even sweetened condensed milk!) for added creaminess and mouthfeel. During the pandemic, I ate a lot of overnight oats, but I eventually got bored of it. When I thought about eating a little breakfast on weekdays again in the last month (I normally don’t eat breakfast on weekdays), I thought about a Bircher muesli recipe I found on the Wall Street Journal (never thought I’d get a recipe recommendation from there!) that sounded good. I changed it up a bit and made a big batch for breakfast this week. And it was really satisfying and definitely kept me quite full and satisfied. This is what the base looks like (for 6-8 servings). The base is soaked overnight to allow the oats to “cook”:

1 C rolled oats
1/4 C unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 C raw cashews, chopped, toasted
1/2 C raw almonds, chopped, toasted

1/4 C pumpkin seeds, toasted
1/4 C ground flaxseeds
1/4 C chia seeds
6 Medjool dates, pitted and diced
1/4 C raisins or dried cranberries/cherries
1 Tbsp honey
3.5 C cow, almond, or oat milk
1 C whole milk yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
 
To add right before serving:
2 firm pears, cored and shredded with skin on
Fresh fruit, such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, or sliced plums

The ingredient I remember I’ve neglected for a while has been chia seeds. I’ve had a weird relationship with chia seeds. Lots of people love to add them to smoothies, but I absolutely hate them in smoothies. They stick to and expand in liquid, and they get physically stuck in everything: blender jar, blades, the sides of the kitchen sink, MY MOUTH. But I realize that in Bircher muesli, they are perfect because they create a pudding-like consistency when mixed with yogurt and milk. I’m definitely going to keep making this. Though I’ll be honest and reveal that I do something a bit sacrilege with my Bircher muesli: I do not eat it cold the way you are supposed to, as I hate cold oats. I always warm my bowl up a little.