Nooshi

Wed 6 June 2007

I don't eat out in Headingley enough. Drinking - that's a different matter because Arcadia is so good, but eating - hardly ever.

I an attempt to redress my city-centre bias last week I headed off to Nooshi. Actually, (ex)Housemate and I wanted something quick and cheap, and I had a cold so something spicy fitted the bill.

After 5pm, Nooshi offers a dinner deal - a noodle box plus a beer for £6 (unless you go for duck or seafood, in which case it's £6.50). (ex)Housemate went for the hoisin duck noodles (without vege - so they will customise your order) and I opted for the spicy chicken and vegetable.

I'll leave aside the fact that the spicy chicken and vegetable contained mini-corn (this is the devil's food) and focus on the rest of the dish. Actually, there's not really a lot to say. There wasn't really a lot of chicken in it, the veggies were unexciting and the sauce tasted a lot like sweet chilli sauce: a bit too sweet and cloying for me.

Nooshi specialises in noodles and sushi, but also offers juices, smoothies, green tea and ice cream. I'd probably nip in to try out their sushi, but when it comes to more noodles I'll probably be heading back to Fuji Hiro in ... the city centre.

It seems that Nooshi haven't been too busy winning over fans and aficionados of Asian food: Sourrain was also a bit underwhelmed.

tagged with: nooshi, noodles, headingley, leeds

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Bahmi Goreng

Sun 11 Mar 2007

Sunday dinners generally have to be pretty foolproof affairs .... after all, you never know when one drink is going to turn into ... well ... more than one, and you never know how late you'll get back from the pub. This means noodles and stirfries (or curries, made earlier in the day) are always a popular choice.

So it was fortuitous that the latest AGT had a whole masterclass section devoted to noodles! Being the carbohydrate junkie that I am I was a bit spoilt for choice (Vietnamese lemongrass beef and rice noodle salad or soba with tempura prawns?) but I couldn't talk Andy into a cold noodle dish so we reached compromise with the recipe for Bahmi Goreng.

This was very easy to put together, but did require a bit of forethought on the shopping front: it contains no fewer than 3 different types of meat!

Firstly, prepare some egg noodles and refresh in cold water.

Beat an egg with a splash of soy sauce and make a little, fine omelette.

For the main part of the dish, heat some oil in a wok and add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, some finely sliced chicken (thigh or breast) and finely sliced pork. Allow this to cook for a little before adding 4 raw prawns (shelled, but tails on), some shredded Chinese leaf, some chopped chilli and 2 thickly sliced onions. Cook this until the prawns just change colour.

Now add a quarter of a cup of chicken stock, the same of kecap manis and a splash of soy sauce. As we didn't have any kecap manis to hand (exactly how many types of soy sauce are we supposed to be keeping in the cupboard?!), we just stuck with soy sauce. Andy had a taste and decided we needed to add some sugar, so I guess that was the kecap manis compromise. Add in your noodles, and make sure everything is hot through before serving.

Serve scattered with crispy fried shallots and the egg roll.

Another hit from this month's AGT, I have to say. While we slightly over did it with the chilli (giving us the opportunity for the spat about de-seeding or not de-seeding chillis), it was delicious and very quick to make. Given that you actually require very little meat (we used half a chicken breast and half a pork chop for the two of us), it would be a great way of using up any left overs. Mind you, I'm not sure how many people have green prawns just loitering in the fridge ...

To drink, we also hit the jackpot. We bought a Vin d'Alsace 2005 Riesling from Marks and Spencer for £5.99. The wine is produced by the Cave de Turckheim, which is a well known Alsatian producer. The wine had a lovely floral nose, a complex palate, with just a hint of residual sweetness. It was delicious and while it went very well with the spicy noodles (it wasn't intimidated by the chilli at all) I think it would work equally as well as an aperitif.

It was a great way to round off a very relaxing weekend!

tagged with: riesling, noodles

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