Egyptian food 2

The menu of Egyptian McDonalds is slightly different from the American's. They have this McArabia chicken on their menu. Also they have Big Mac fish,which is Big Mac with fish in it instead of hamburger meat.

We have been spoiled by the fresh fruit juice in Egypt. The juice store has pomegranate,orange, mangos and sugar cane juice. Its only around 4LE =<$1 per glass.

We went to this touristy restaurant and they served individual portion of chicken or lamb kebabs.

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Egyptian food

Egyptian food are very high in carbohydrates and low in fiber. Usually the fiber source is from legumes or fruits.

Kosary.... is the traditional Egyptian food. This food is everwhere and a lot of times restaurants or street vedors would only sell Kosary. Kosary mixed with rice, macaroni, black lentils, fried onions and tomato sauce. Some local like to put hot sauce and vinegar to eat with.



Hamam....pigeon, usually stuff with rice and spices. So far we have only found this dish in nicer restaurants.

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The Pyramid of Giza

Pyramid of Giza -> Egypt Museum -> Overnight train ride to Aswan (12 hours)


After 5 days of adventures to Amsterdam, Alexandria and Cairo by ourselves, we finally joined our tour group today to visit the Pyramid of Giza. It was my biggest pleasure to see the only one left of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. They are so huge that we can see the Pyramids from a far distance away. Pyramid of Khufu is the biggest pyramid of all and was built for King Khufu in 2589-2566BC. This pyramid only allows 100 people to go inside every day to better preserve the monument. The small 2 are Pyramid of Khafre (Khufu’s son) and the pyramid of Mycerinus( Khufu successor). Mr.S and I are very fortunate to be able to go inside the Pyramid of Khafre.

I was a little nervous before going inside the Pyramid because I was worried the slope would be too steep to walk or too dark to see. Apparently, when the pyramids are built, they built in passage ways for workers to go in and out of the pyramid. The surfaces of each stones are so smooth that every single rock is tight sealed. After walking down of the passage way for around 10 minutes, we went up for around 10 minutes. The air was getting stuffy and finally we reached the King’s Chamber. The King Chamber is a small room, with a small air shaft on the top of one of the walls. Lay on one side of the room is the sarcophagus. It was nothing much to see in the chamber, but it was amazing to be able to go inside of a pyramid.


After visiting the pyramids, we moved onto see the Sphinx. It was a shame that the Sphinx was fenced so we are unable to go closer but it is still a very incredible to see the Sphinx still exist since it is built of soft sandstone.



Later the day, we visited the Egyptian museum. This museum was built in 1863 and was very different from other museums because it seemed like the Pharaonic antiquities that they have are so much that they run out of space to put them. The most amazing part of the museum is the Mummy room and King Tutankhamun’s collections. The mummy room cost US$20 more to go in, but it definitely worth it. You can see some of the most famous pharaoh mummies including Ramses II. For King Tut’s collections, the tomb was found intact and the only one in the world was saved from tomb robbers. Looking at the gold mask of Tutankhamen, its like looking at the King himself. They also displayed the gold coffins of King Tut. Our tour guide said just days before our tour started, the archeologist suggested King Tut probably wasn’t murdered at age 19, instead probably he died due to generation of incest within his ancestry.

After a long day of seeing some of the most amazing things in the world, we took an over night train to head down to Aswan.

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Cairo- Islamic & Coptic Cairo

Before doing all the must do pyramid tour, we continued our trip with our city sightseeing.

We started our day early to go to the Citadel which included Mosque of Mohammad Ali Pasha. The mosque was started building in 1824 by Mohammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt and finished in 1857. The architecture was influenced by the Ottoman mosques in Istanbul.

After the Citadel, we went the the Mosques of Sultan Hassan. It is one of the largest Mosques in The world. It was said that the Sultan ordered the hand of the architect to be cut off, in order that the building would remain unique.

Our next stop was Gayer-Anderson house. Major Robert Gayer-Anderson, a retired British doctor restored and refurished the houses with Ottoman-era furniture and fitting in 1934. At the house you can also see his collections of Egyptian antiques.

We continued to head south to go to Coptic area of Cairo. We visited the Coptic museum, which was found in 1908 to preserve Coptic artefacts and Egypt's Christian heritage against the acquisitive activities of local and foreign collectors. We also visited church of St. George and the Hanging church.

Our last stop of the day is the Nilometer, it was originally built in The ninth century BC. It was once used to measure the water level of the Nile.

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Picture of the day in Cairo

A pita bread delivery man with a bike in downtown Cairo......awesome.

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Another kind of experience

I have been in Egypt for 3 days and these are some of my experiences:

1) People are generally nice in Egypt. When the cab driver didn't know where we whated to go someone who could speak some English would come and help. Or when they see you are a tourist they will say 'Hello' or 'Welcome'. But ofcourse, many just want to sell something to you. Which is my second point.....

2) People here always ask for $$. Well, I guess its the culture and its one of their sources of income. But when we ask for directions from the tourist police and they ask us for tip... or when we go to mosques the person that put our shoes away would ask for tips..... or the street vendor already over charging us on the pomegranate juice for 7LE and when we paid 10LE they will keep the change....or when we had a nice dinner, the restaurant already charged for 12% service fee plus 10% tax and they also want to keep the change.

3) Feral cats everywhere. I bet cat lovers would want to adopt all these kitties and take them home. Where ever you go you will see them. Especially when you eat somewhere with outside seatings, the kitties will stare at you when you eat.

5) Its impossible to not to get lost in Cairo. I might need to blame the travel books I got,because the 2 travel books that we have would spell the street name differently from the real street. Or the street name is written in Arabic. The streets not line up like Bellevue, you can imagine its like Seattle streets without street names and every store looks the same. There are mosques everywhere so its hard to find a good landmark.

6) We haven't gotten sick from eating street vendor food yet. I guess we can save our cipro for later.

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Cairo........City of mixed culture.

Cairo is a city that is both modern and ancient, Christian and Muslim, and absolutely full of art.

Cairo is split into different parts including Islamic Cairo, old Cairo, downtown Cairo, Coptic Cairo, Giza, and several other small towns.

We started off to explorering Islamic Cairo. It is a historic area that contains the greatest concentration of medieval Islamic monuments to be found anywhere.

Visiting mosques is a must in Islamic Cairo. We visited the Al-Ghouri Complex, and had a chance to climb up the minaret to see the whole city. Then we visited Al-Azhar Mosque which was founded in A.D. 970. We then walked around Khan Al-Khalili market. You can find all the Egyptian souvenirs you need there. We walked the length of the old medieval walled city.

We relaxed at Al-Azhar park, which was once a dump and was transformed into the biggest park in Egypt.

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Alexandria

After a long journey we arrived at Alexandria which has a lot of fasinating history behind it. This town named after Alexandrer the Great was concoured by the Romans, British, French, Ottomans, etc, so the city is a melting pot of different culture.

We were welcomed with a drink at the hotel made with dried petals of the red hibiscus. Fruit juice stands were everywhere and you can purchase a fruit drink made with pomegranate, mango or mango for 7LE (about $1.25).

Stepping out from the Misr station you can see the Roman Amphitheather, it was once buried and now more pieces are discovered including the Roman bath, and a villa.

At the north end of Alexandria you can find Qaitbay Citadel. It is believed to be made from the stone of the Lighthouse of Pharos (one of the seven wonders).

It was a shame that we cannot bring our camera to a lot of the sites and museums. We visited the Catacombs, Jewellery museum, and the Alexandria National museum.

At the Catacomb, it is amazing to see the carvings on the tombs and painting on the walls from almost 2 thousand of years ago. They were a strang mix of Egyptian and Roman mythalogy.

The Jewellery museum is converted from King Farouk palace. The decorations inside looks European and one of the walls painted with the story of Odyssey. The jewelleries were collected from the time of Mohammed Ali through the last King of Egypt.

At the National museum I got to learn a lot of Egyptian history including the obelist standing in New York city was once put in the Ceasarion. And it was my first time to see a mummy in real life.

A lot of local taxi drivers or private cars offer rental and pay per hour. Usually you bargin the price before you get on the taxi. We didn't rent a car but our cab driver did drove us around when we visited the Montazah Gardens. It once was a vacation home for the Kings during summer. Now its used as the president's house. The cab drivers also stopped at the dates garden and we tried some fresh dates. It tasted like dry dates but it was harder, the skin was kind of bitter and the after taste was refreshing.

If you know me well, you know that I do not like beans. For this trip I have practised to eating more beans and lamb. We have tried fuul which is beans in pita bread. Also, we tried sharama, and a food that we don't know what it is called but they put beans, peas, little pasta, rice, fried onion and a sauce in a bowl then mix to eat.

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The longest day of my life

Saturday morning we flew from Seattle to Amsterdam, stayed for 13 hours then flew to Cairo at 1am. We took a cab from the airport to what was supposed to be a really nice train station but turned out to be in the middle of remodeling construction. It didn't even have a place to sit. Then we took a three hour train to the ancient city of Alexandria. We are staying at a 100 year old palace which was converted into hotel.

The longest day ever!

Now is sleeping time :)

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Amsterdam......Sex, drugs and high calorie food.

Amsterdam is a very quite city on a Sunday morning. We saw few people walking around the street not until after 1-2pm. Weather here is just like Seattle, cool and rainy. We started off our trip with a visit the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum. I fell in love with one of the Van Gogh's painting called the Almond Blossom which he painted as a gift to his new born nephew.





If you get tired walking around town you can hire the bicycle taxi . Most of the locals bike around town without wearing biking outfits like seattlites commonly do. Across from the museums there was the flower market, where you can buy Tulip bulbs to take home.




All the building are built side by side with no room in between. We also walked around the Red Light district and saw prostitutes standing in front windows winking at you to get your attention.




We also tried fries with mayonaise and they actually tasted pretty good!

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1 hour to take off.... Seattle - Amsterdam - Cairo

Finally, here I am at the Seattle international airport to go on our trip to Egypt and Jordan. We are going to have 5 days on our own in Amsterdam, Alexandria and Cairo before we meet our tour group. I hope to be able to blog through out the trip. So, stay tuned!

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Portland 10.10.10 Marathon/eating trip.

Mr. S and I went down to Portland, Oregon this weekend for my first marathon, which I ran with my friend CC.




When we go there went to the Tin Shed for breakfast. They had self service coffee which was a nice thing to have while you are waiting in line for a table. But, you had go and pour yourself coffee when you are eating.  We ordered the chicken sausage scramble and meat scramble with gravy which both came with potato cakes. The potato cakes were very good and are highly recommend.




Mr. S and CC's husband Dr. C they are big sports and beer fans.  All they want to do is to watch college football and drink beer.  Well, I have to admit traveling around the northwest we have visited several microbreweries. This time we chose Laurelwood Brewing company for dinner since it meets CC and I's choice of organic and natural food/drinks and also meet the boys need for TV and drinking. What a nice compromise!

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Tonkatsu (Japanese Pork Cutlets)

I have been craving Japanese food lately. A while ago, Thundering Hooves had a meat sale and I got some pastured pork chops, so I decided to make Tonkatsu, which is my favorite pork dish! This recipe is a much healthier version since I baked the pork instead of deep frying it.


Ingredients
Tonakatsu
1 lb. of boneless, skinless thin cut pork cutlets
1/3 cup flour
dash salt and pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup of Panko bread crumbs

Tonkatsu Sauce
½ cup ketchup
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. Worcestershire
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp of grated ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Tonkatsu
1) Pre-heat oven to 425.
2) Set up three plates. In the first plate combine the flour, salt and pepper. In the next bowl beat your egg. And in the third bowl, pour your breadcrumbs.
3) Dredge the pork cutlets in the flour mixture, being sure to shake off any excess. Next dip the cutlet into the eggs and then finally coat with the Panko breadcrumbs.
4) Place the cutlets on a baking sheet that has been lightly coated with a spritz of olive oil and pop into the oven for six minutes on each side.

Tonkatsu Sauce
1) Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.

Steam tofu with shrimp paste 蝦膠蒸豆腐

Mr.S got me an electronic steamer for Christmas and I have been wanting to use it more often to make some delicious healthy dishes.

There were wild shrimp and organic tofu on sale, so it was a perfect time to make this dish. I remember my parents used to use fish paste to make this dish, since it is hard to get the kind of fish to make fish paste, I am using shrimp instead.


Ingredients
1/2 pounds of shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 tablespoons sugar
drops of oil
1 block of tofu, cut into small flat blocks
dash green onion, course chopped

Pouring sauce
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoons organic lite soy sauce


Directions
1) Put shrimp, corn starch, sugar, and oil into a small food processor and mince all the ingredients into a paste form.
2) Place tofu on a plate, then put about 1 tablespoon of shrimp paste on each small tofu blocks
3) Steam for 15 minutes. At the same time, heat olive oil in a sauce pan.
4) When tofu is done, pour hot oil on tofu. Then sprinkle soy sauce and green onion on top.

Funny sides of Vancouvor

We went to NOOD in gas town which is a very cool designer furniture and gadget store. I found this warm pad shaped like a bear and filled with sand. You put it into the microwave to warm it up for the cold winter nights.



We found a couple of corner buildings around Vancouver like this building in the picture. Its shaped like a wedge of cheese.



When we were leaving Gastown we found 'Vansterdam'!! You can smell the aroma of marijuana all through the street.

Funny sign!

More of Richmond,BC.

Richmond is heaven for Asian food lovers. Of course I will use this time to stock up on Asian groceries. We went to a Chinese herb and medicine store for soup ingredients. The people in there were nice and knowledgeable plus they explained to us what each ingredient is to be used for.

Later we stopped by Aberdeen mall for some Hong Kong style street food. This is one of the things I miss the most about Hong Kong. Fried calamari, fish meat sui mai, different kind of meats grilled on sticks, and they are all on the menu. We tried Hong Kong style milk tea, fried children wings and curried fish balls. Yum.... they were so good!

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First time charm! travel blogging begins.

We are in Vancouver for the weekend so I get a chance to practice my travel blogging :) .

Special thanks to my Vancouver friend Miss Grouch for all the great advise on where to eat. Because as you all know, food is one of the most important things in my life.

We started out by going to dim sum at Sea Harbour restaurant in Richmond. We ordered food that we don't normally see in Seattle, such as OX sauce turnip cake, bbq pork dumplings, and Chinese salty donut wrapped with rice noodles. They were so delicious! I swear Richmond is the best place to have Chinese food outside of China.

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Chinese Beef Stew with Broccoli

I learned to make Chinese beef stew when I was living in a dorm while in college. At that time I had to share a kitchen with everyone living on the same floor. One afternoon a neighbor was making this Chinese beef stew and the smell filled up the whole floor!

I bought some grass fed, stew beef last week and it was perfect for making this beef stew.


Ingredients
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire
3 star anise
1 pound stew meat
4 cups broccoli
2 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon water


Direction
1) Combine the first 5 ingredients to a pot and bring to boil.
2) Add stew meat then bring to boil again.
3) Turn heat to medium-low and cook for at least 1 hour (or if you have a slow cooker, you can put it on low and cook for 7 hours)until meat is tender.
4) Add broccoli into the stew, stir well. In a small bowl, mix corn starch and water together.
5) Add corn starch mix to stew to thicken the stew. Serve immediately when broccoli is cooked over rice.