No la... It's no biggie, I've made it to NOLA!!-- 20150322-20150331: Trip to New Orleans, Louisiana for RCA Annual Conference and Culinology Competition

Excuse me for the lame pun, I just had to. Sorry~

x.

After weeks of sleepless night and exasperation tasting the same shrimps and biscuit over and over again, finally I was there, Hall D of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, carrying out my last routine before I officially bade farewell to this pandemonium. The food was served, the judges tasted the food and gave their feedback, not really welcoming as what I understood.

"It's over," I thought to myself.

"No more self doubt, you've done your best, no regrets." I told myself.

I thought it was a relief, but I was in fact desensitising myself to all competition related stuff to a point that I couldn't feel anything even at the moment when we knew we were one of the top 3. or maybe I was just flabbergasted, cause I sincerely thought the other team would make it instead of us. But it's a fact, we got 1st runner up, once again beaten by Johnson and Wales (ish!). But what am I to complain? 2nd out of the 17 teams worldwide that took part in this competition, that's a helluva achievement! You go girl!

x.

And that was two weeks ago, now as I'm back to school and my FYP, everything that happened back there was just too surreal. It literally (I mean it!) felt like a dream. Did it happen? Did it not happen? I think it did, at least I have photos (though not many) as my alibi. xP

D -3

Touched down New Orleans after a long haul flight! Our flight was delayed for an hour, so it was 7 something when we arrived. Guess what! We went to the hotel on a limousine! What an experience!

1 stop before New Orleans, it's snowing in Chicago! FIRST SNOW IN MY LIFE

Squeezing our best smiles on our tired faces..

First dinner. Tried fried alligator, tasted like chicken. LOL #Asianatwork

D -2

Walking towards the future of food-- 2015 RCA Annual Conference happening in NOLA!

So, this was taken when we went for registration on the second day, after we went through a long morning doing "ingredient hunt". Right, we woke up at 5 and went out around 6 am to a nearby grocery, Rouses Market (which turned out to be my favourite 'shopping' place), to source for ingredient. They had most ingredients we needed, except for a few, so we decided to walk another 3km to Walmart to get our stuff.

Louisiana owned grocery-- Rouses Market

Only had we known that Walmart was not any better than Rouses Market! It did have a wider selection of goods, but the quality of food did not seem as good as Rouses. But at least we had a good walk there bought lots of snacks and souvenirs. 

Scenery along the way from Rouses to Walmart featuring Helen

And we took a bus back to the hotel after the grocery shopping. 

That night we had dinner at Mulate's, which is just outside of the convention centre. The seafood platter was not bad, but we were all thrilled by the Cajun smoked oyster (sorry, no pictures). It was garlic-y and the oyster was so sweet I couldn't even... 

Too bad we came a bit too early, the band was only there when we were about to leave. =(

Top: Mulate's Seafood platter- good but not breathtaking =X;

Bottom: Jambalaya- we had this almost everyday and this was the best I've tried.

After dinner, it was time for a retail therapy (as if the morning grocery is not enough). We went to Riverwalk which is just next to the convention centre, Guess what? Since it's Easter, the shops were all having great sales, and you see everyone started grabbing Coach like none other's business, but what would you expect? It's 50% off store-wide after all, cheaper than Malaysia's price by a few times even after conversion.

A great place to chill, especially in the evening. Enjoy the sunset while overlooking the Mississippi River. 

D -1

The conference officially started. Spent the morning attending workshop and the afternoon setting up our speed rack. We met our opponents and the judges for the first time. My adrenaline level was reaching its maximum, guess that's why I was so unaware of what happened during the set up. LOL! All I could remember was suddenly the atmosphere tense up and made me unconfortable. I only found out later coming back here, that Kenley and Vinson almost got into a fight. Ah,  the stress and tension! I think that's basically my condition for most of this trip, not caring whatever was happening around me cause all I wanted was a good sleep. So yeah, couldn't handle any more activities that evening, we skipped the reception dinner and headed straight back to the hotel that night hoping for a good night sleep. 

D 0

Competition day! I woke up at 3.30am as we needed to gather at the lobby at 5am and depart to the convention centre. Adrenaline continue to build up. I wasn't in my state of mind anymore, more than the day before I guess. Couldn't even recall what I was doing then. All I remembered was I wanted the whole competition to be over. Anyway, we were the earliest bunch to reach the convention centre, which were later joined by the Canadian team. After rounds of photo shooting, we finally settled ourselves for the competition. Canadian team went first and close after them was team Titan. We were supposed to start right after that, but it was somehow delayed so we lost some mise en place time. Thanks to our practices back home, we didn't need 15 minutes to get prepared. So the competition officially started once we got ready.

Quick 'breakfast', needed some sugar rush to get me through the day.

Team ACE ready to rock the competition!

My dad took a screencap of me during the live stream of the competition. >.<

We all performed our roles like what we have been trained to. A little part of me had a feeling that something would go wrong, cause Murphy's Law always have this thing on me. And there, it was proven once again, when I couldn't properly switch on the weighing scale. Fortunately we brought an extra weighing scale, though not as accurate. Phew. Then just as I thought everything was going too smoothly, I found my biscuit dough to be super lumpy. It delayed my time in cutting it and I became frustrated when my team mates kept checking on me cause I was already behind the time.

"Dong, expression management! You look like you're gonna eat a person up!" Wilbert was kind enough to remind me even he was also experiencing problems with the shrimps. 

Yeap, as well as I know myself when I was too focus and engrossed in doing my job, I hissed back impatiently, "SHHH! Don't tell me what to do, I need to focus right now! I know what to do!" Sorry, Wilbert... X目 Alas! I finally managed to finish cutting though some of the biscuits were out of shape. But one thing I was really grateful was the oven. Thank goodness it was a convection oven, it saved me the time I'd lost cutting the biscuits. Great!

We're almost done with the competition, all we left was plating up and waiting for the commercial product to heat up. Yet, another delay announcement. The first team used up too much time for reheating thus affecting our schedule. What a day! As we thought we had more time, the judges informed us that we have to plate the commercial product individually instead of serving in one big portion. This time, I was really really grateful that we foresaw all these situations and prepared our plan B's ahead! Yet another near miss, phew! So yeah, we finally managed to serve our food on time, you have no idea how relieved I felt! Like the feeling you get after a short distant sprint, I just felt like I'm collapsing after giving all out.

Our product--
Left: Gold standard; middle: commercialised product (frozen ones in the box); bottom right: plated commercialised product.

Oh, the happy faces.. Competition's over! Team ACE ftw!! Photo courtesy of Wilbert.

Yet, as much as I wanted sleep, there's so much more for us to explore. We visited the Culinology Expo in the afternoon, and were being hollered back to the hotel as others were just too exhausted. While others were deep in their dreamland,  four of us went out to the student's reception thinking it's a party. But tadaa, it ended up to be a Culinology student meeting. Err, it was super awkward as we were already late and there were only less than 10 in the room. *awkward crow flies by*

Anyway, we did manage to find out where the real party was and made it there with Rick joining us on the way. Once again, the atmosphere was still, as we knew nobody there. We chatted with Shakira and her SMSU team for a while thinking of moving somewhere else to get dinner. But then, we were later caught up by the Canadian team, and there we were stuck in the party for the whole night. The rest who were sleeping in the hotel earlier on also joined us. I admit I'm not a social animal to the bone. I did manage a few small talks here and there but I found myself eating and drinking most of the time. Gah,,, I tried my best, maybe this is just not my thing....

At the Tobasco party.. Photo courtesy of Nicholas

D +1

New day after the competition, I slept in for a bit, finally I was not the earliest to wake up. LOL! Helen woke me up in fact. We attended the conference in the morning, had crawfish which was not up to my liking for lunch, and went to Riverwalk again before attending the Award Ceremony at night. 

Somehow thinks I left my luck back in Malaysia.. The others who went for the other workshop get to 'taste' alcohol in the morning, what I got was two leaves of  radicchio lettuce, one gulp of orange juice, one sachet of sugar and three jelly beans. *pouts

Crawfish and vegetables for lunch. It was extremely salty and tasted nothing else. 

Oh, before I forgot! I tasted beignet from the famous Cafe du Monde. It was so so, imagine a fluffier slightly undercooked "you tiao" being generously sprinkled with icing sugar. Yup! that's it, not worth the hype at all. 

See, I ain't bluffing.. It does look like it, no? Photo credit: Cindy Lo's pixnet 

5.30pm, we head to the ceremony hall as the Awards ceremony would be held in half hour. 6.00pm, we entered the hall and sat at the last rows. Before the ceremony started, a guy from SMSU (forgotten his name) came to us, "Good look, good look" he repeated a several times. "Thank you," we replied, but I was weirded out as to why did he wish us 'good look', did he meant we were good looking? but why? When I found out later that he meant "good luck" Argh!!! that was so embarrassing! Helen and I guessed he must be a Brit, and Shakira confirmed that he's Irish. Lol. 

Anyway, I wasn't paying much attention during the ceremony, since I was not prepared to get on the stage. Then the top 3 of the student competition were asked to forward to the stage. 

"Northern Exposure, Johnson & Wales and ACE" 

"ACE" ACE!!!!! It echoed in my ears, and I was stunned for a second. This can't be real, I still couldn't believe when I was standing in front of the hall. We were announced as the 2nd runner up. We went up the stage, cheque received, photos taken. Went down the stage, people started to congratulate us. Honestly, I really didn't know how to respond to all these wishes, I didn't felt the happiness I thought I would feel but I feel sorry for the other two teams instead. Issh! Dong, why can't you be tougher...

After that, we had a cocktail reception. We thank the judges, had our share of food and drinks and left the place for Bourbon street. 

Group photo with the papa of Taylor's Culinology. He was the winner for the professional team! photo courtesy of Nicholas

It's 2500 dollars!!!!

A view of not-so-wild-part of Bourbon street. Too many people, me no likey. 

D +2

Last day in New Orleans! Had a not so enjoyable morning at TJ Maxx, but a super satisfying dinner. 

Loving the sun! Finally I smell spring.. Photo courtesy of Wilbert. 

So we splitted into two groups that morning, one went to TJ Maxx for shopping and the other group went to French Quarter. I really didn't know why I chose not to go to the French Quarter, because that is what I would opt for any other day. Anyway, choice was made and we made our move there. The weather was super good that day, sunny day, blue sky, no clouds, and green is everywhere. 

No filter, no edit. This is spring.

Mexican food for lunch, everything just looks the same even though the names are different.

I'm actually iffy about having red bean paste as a salty condiment, but it was actually not bad!

Meanwhile, the other group was having fun at the French Quarter tasting oysters, enjoying jazz and eating the world's 2nd hottest chilli. Hmmph!!! Regret to the max!!

Video credit to Nicholas. 

But I did get a chance to roam about the French Quarters in the evening, and the sunset makes everything so beautiful. 

Didn't get a chance to ride on one.. =/

Before a wedding reception..

Dinner! Best dinner I had in New Orleans goes to.. *drum rolls*

Mother's Restaurant!! They boasted to have the best baked ham in the world!

which as indeed very good! This is a po boy with their ham and it tasted like Chinese braised meat. Some had the ham plain and found it too salty though.

My favourite! Fried chicken with dirty rice and butter biscuits. Super satisfying as the chicken was real good, crispy and juice but you can't really taste the grease. 

Not to mention this hot sauce which is sweet, sour and spicy at the right balance. 

After dinner, I went back to the hotel to catch up with my long needed sleep, while the others continue to explore the night life of New Orleans.

And that was our last day in New Orleans, we departed for airport 3 am the next morning. A "little" incident happened at the airport. Our baggage almost couldn't get back to Malaysia! But I think I'll keep the story for some other time as this post is already getting too long. 

So, stay tuned for more updates as I am now fully back to working mode. Updates on my final year project would be coming up next!

Till next time, 

Dong

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20140727-20140817 Incheon/Seoul trip Part 1: FOOOOOODDDDD! =d

I. must. finish. this. post. before. 2014. ends. Okay okay, I know it's mid-winter already, writing something happened back in the summer sounds very dated.. My bad, but better late than never right? Yeah, so I shall present to you, my three-week life in the place that makes you feel like you're a drama character anywhere you go.

It was one of the most memorable holiday I had. 

Aww,, yeeah! I joined Inha Summer School in Incheon, South Korea! alone.. and it was AWESOME!

and the awesomest of all, FOOOODDD!! oh my, the food in Korea is so accessible, and the variety you can find is so wide that we hardly repeat any food during my three-week stay. From street food to high-end restaurant food, from traditional hansik to fusion food (I can't technically call them western or Chinese or whatsoever nationality 'cause there's always a Korean twist to it), you name it they have it. And most importantly, you can just pop into any outlet you see without worrying that you'll get a black hole. Yes, the quality is that good. okay, except certain shops at tourist spots. Anyway, the general guide is to follow the crowd (local, not tourists). LOL! Shops with less people are usually either super good or super bad, that's speaking from my experience. If you're not a risk taker, just go safe I'd advise. =X

Sneak peak of the food I ate there.. Of course it's not all...

Let's start off with the most common food in Korea..

White rice and Kimchi!

White rice is the staple of most Asian countries, and so is it in Korea. We had rice in almost every meal, but personally I never get tired of it. The rice is more of a sticky one compared to those we have in Southeast Asia. The grain is rounder and I suppose, has more amylopectin than amylose. That's why the texture is somewhat between our fragrant rice and glutinous rice. Not only white rice, they also eat a variety of different grains like brown rice, red rice (is it the right name?) and mixed grains. They know how to cook their rice. Look at the rice portion I took in the beginning of the semester vs the one towards the end of my stay.

Day 2 breakfast

One of the breakfasts in the 2nd week

If you were wondering, yes, these are my breakfasts, with a good portion of rice and side dishes. It felt a bit too heavy on the first few days, but I eventually got used to it, and ended up getting more and more. =X Can't really help it, the rice is too good. 

Also, to cater for those who don't wanna take all the hassle to cook rice, they have a whole range of microwavable rice too! I saw families stocking up this from the supermarket instead of buying a whole sack of rice. Their convenience stores (CVS for u is actually more common than 7-eleven here) also sell frozen bento boxes where you can just heat up. The rice are all very similar to those freshly cooked.  

Microwavable white rice. It's dehydrated precooked rice aka pregelatinised rice or parboiled rice. You can eat by simply rehydrating it with hot water or microwave it with water. 

Brown rice version, in a pack of six. 

Then we have kimchi! It's a staple, it's a known fact. You don't even have to search for it, as it is everywhere. you don't say. Anyway, there are different kinds of kimchi, and it's not necessarily red. What I know was that the more 'royal' the dish is, the clearer and less spicy it is. That said, the common red kimchi are actually food for the commoners. The most common one is baechu kimchi, I can gobble up a whole bowl of rice just with this. Other kimchis I've tried included cucumber, raddish, mul (water) kimchi, and perilla leave kimchi (the one I hated the most, ugh! The corriander-like pungency is really an acquired taste though, I learnt to appreciate it the more I'm exposed to the taste). 

different kinds of kimchi:- photo taken from National Folk Museum of Korea

It was entering autumn on the third week: What's better than a hot sizzling bowl of kimchi jiggae on a cold rainy day?

See the black thing in the middle? That's perilla leaf kimchi, I can't even..

Other than kimchi, another signature of Korean food is CHILLI!!! The hotness of Korean dish is a different kind of hotness compared to other regional dishes. It's characterised with a rounder and fuller body as the hotness mostly come from gochujang, which is a fermented chilli paste. Fermentation 'tenderises' the sting and gave the paste more layers. I'd say it's less direct that Southeast Asian dishes, where chilli is used directly. You can feel the sting (which I enjoy dearly) eating Southeast Asian cuisine, while the spiciness appears at the back of the tongue while eating Korean dish. It also doesn't have the smokiness like Mexican dishes have. It's somewhat closer to the Chinese kind of spiciness which has a strong garlic taste, but without the numbness from Szechuan pepper and it's less oily. I admit, my taste bud is very insensitive to spiciness, (I eat bird's eye chilli as a condiment) I don't think Korean dishes are spicy in general, but many of my Indonesian friends could not accept it, for the spiciness is 'weird'. LOL! Anyway, I enjoyed their food when it's spicy. It really wakes you up on a hot summer's day!

Been hearing people saying how hot is this fire fried ramyun, finally got to try! It's so hot that it's good! 

Spicy ddeokbokki, it looks innocent, but I can hardly survive eating this,,, LOL

Luckily I had this, 

this, 

and this to 'distinguish the fire'.

LOL! The pictures above are all conventional street food sold at a pojangmacha (Korean food truck), ddeokbokki (fried rice cake), twigim (tempura), odeng (fish cake), and sundae (blood sausage). Often times they also sell baby kimbap and other fried stuff. Oh, have I mentioned how much I love sundae? I love the chewy texture of the sausage, and if dipped with the ddeokbokki sauce, it provides spiciness to it and makes everything taste so different. I mean if you really can't accept the fact that it's made of blood, try masking it with ddeokbokki sauce, but trust me, it doesn't taste bloody or metallic at all. What's better was that it came with all sorts of pork innards (my fav again!), okay, maybe it's time for me to do a body checkup, cholesterol.. T.T
Speaking of pojangmacha (布帐马车), I've always imagined it as a place filled with drunkards, thanks kdrama, but surprisingly I can hardly find that kind of pojangmacha, all I visited were technically just macha (without pojang). There's one in front of our dorm at night, but they don't serve alcohol, so yeah, the atmosphere was kinda different.

A view of pojangmacha taken from the net, but why couldn't I find this during my stay?

The stall at the back gate that we always visit at night, right, there's no seats, nor is there a tent.. picture courtesy of Tracy.

So we've been talking about food truck, how can we miss other street food? You don't have to find them, street food is everywhere as you walk along the street. Of these, the common ones are like gaelan bbang (egg bun), heoddeok (pancake?), bungeo bbang (fish bun), yak gwa (sunflower pastry), and all kinds of soft ice cream. Oh, waffle too! I especially loved the one at the back gate of Inha University, served with whipped cream and flavoured syrup (peach or plum is nice!) and it's just KRW1000. But I don't see anyone selling sweet potatoes though, it's too hot for summer. 

yachae heoddeok (deep fried vegetables 'pancake'): tasted a bit like chai kueh deep fried version

Honey comb ice-cream: there're many different brands, and I heard this is the original (whatever, it doesn't matter to me, LOL!) To me it's just sugar in honey comb shape, and it's waaayy too sticky, ice cream is smooth and milky though. 

Sikhae, barley drink: it's really really refreshing, I love it!

Mango and yoghurt ice cream, they boasted to be 30cm, but it seems like they don't enforce a strict QC.. =X

Closer view of gaelan bbang: an egg baked on top of sponge in a small oven. I like that the egg and the sponge complements each other, especially the yolk makes the whole thing taste so much richer.

Waffle at the back gate.

Bungeo bbang: waffle-like batter baked into fish shape, traditionally with red bean paste as filling. This is a variation with ice-cream.

Speaking of red bean paste, I love this red bean croquette to pieces. Crispy on the outside (but not greasy), and smooth on the inside, plus it's sweet! =D

Enough of hot food, let's move on to some refreshing food. It's summer anyway. 

Seolbing! the very heavily 'featured' brand in Pinocchio, despite it being winter now in Korea.  This one is black sesame and dates, taste wise, good but nothing phenomenal. 

Wait, that's not the point, lol! Everyone knows patbingsu, you can even get it in here, what I wanna introduce was cold noodles! A must during the summer! There's different kind of cold noodles too, but the ones I tried were mul naengmyun (cold noodle soup) and kong guksu (bean noodles). Usually, there's bibim naengmyun too, but Joo Jangmi told us that if naengmyun, it must be soup!

She's right! (mul naeng myun at the bottom right corner) The sourness of the soup really boost up your appetite and the ice is so soothing on a summer's day. One thing is that the mung bean noodle is long and chewy, so better be careful while eating or you might get choked! Okay, you can cut them into shorter strand, but where's the fun when you can't slurp it up?

Kong guksu in the white soupy bowl: taste like noodles in sesame paste with soy taste. It's a bit too gluey to me, definitely can't finish one serving on my own. The other one on the top left was kkal guksu (knife cut noodles): tasted exactly like pan mee. >.<

Towards the end of my stay, it was already entering autumn, plus there were also typhoon attack during that time, so I didn't get to eat cold stuff much. Instead, I had lotsa hot soupy meals served in a stone bowl. 

Super nice seafood budae jiggae, have I mentioned how generous they are with their mussels? I feels like it's as cheap as chicken, you get loads of mussels in soupy dishes.

Kamja tang (potato soup): I like that I can graze the big soup bone they use to cook the broth, flavourful and tender. 

Vegetable doenjang jiggae (bean paste soup) at a random place in Hongdae: meh, really, it's just salty, no bean taste at all.

Typical Korean table setting: excuse the blurriness, I was too eager to eat! >.<

That's about all the 'Korean' food I ate, but mind you, there're still many Koreanised regional food that I'm not sure whether should I consider it as Korean or not. LOL! Case in point: Chinese food in Korea! I'm sure first thing that came to mind is the famous jajangmyun. Not sure if the ones I've tasted were not properly cooked or it just tastes as it is, I just don't get the hype over jajangmyun. It's just noodles flooded in an overly thickened soy sauce with an overwhelming onion and pepper taste. To be honest, I think Chinese takeout in Korea is bad, everything tastes either onion or pepper or soy sauce, and the sauce is always so gluey that you might get choked if you gobble too fast. 

Lunch in campus cafeteria, Chinese fried rice with jajjang sauce and mandu (dumplings): pure saltiness, nothing else.

Jajjang myun! Its taste is like its appearance: meh.

Sweet and sour pork! One dish that can rarely go wrong, but it could be better if the fritter is tossed in the sauce over the wok before serve. 

Dumplings and seafood noodles (jjambong): I have only one comment, there's a hell load of mussels in there! Taste good too if you don't think it's Chinese food.

Same goes to Japchae (mixed vegetables) with rice: not what I expected but at least acceptable.

Something's missing yet? Ramyun! and a bunch more of convenience food! Right, treating convenience store as a restaurant is a common practice in anywhere of Asia, except Malaysia (which I still can't exactly get why). So, how would I miss the chance to try all the food they sell in convenience store? I spent a few lunch in a convenience store and can't even covered one quarter of the item.

Frozen ddeokbokki: this is bolognese flavour, taste not bad actually. 

I found Koreans have this obsession with banana too. Banana flavoured corn snack, it's weird but it's good. LOL

Jappaghetti (jajjang myun + spaghetti): Hoo ya, you cheated me with your oh so delicious face, this just tasted salty, like every other jajjang I've tasted. T.T

Japaghetti: before adding in the seasoning.

Bingeurae: famous Korean snack brand. I had melon milk because banana was too mainstream. =X

Frozen fried rice

Inside: it's a bit too sticky and bland, but otherwise it's fine. Thailand is still better in this.

Yeap, I thought I had more to share but that's about all. Seems like 3 weeks were not enough, I haven't get to try hongeo (fermented stingray) and sannakji (live octopus)! Fine, I had the chance but it was too damn expensive. Anyway, you can visit my story for more pictures.

Cheers!

Dong

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