Given only the above, what would I cook? I gave it an Asian twist even though tagliatelle doesn’t seem to belong to Asian kitchen.

I cut the tofu into thin rectangular shape, coated them with corn flour and pan fried them while the tagliatelle was in the boiling pot of water. I pan fried the tofu in two batches and set them aside, which by then the tagliatelle was almost cooked.

I heated up the wok, put a little bit of olive oil, followed by the garlic and onions. Well, I always make sure I have these ingredients in my kitchen no matter what. After about 2 minutes, I chucked in the sliced leeks and gave them a good stir. I then started to season them with heaps of black pepper, some light soya sauce and some dark soya sauce. After that, I added some water to make the sauce.

When it came to boil, I thicken the sauce with corn flour. Let it boil for about 2 minutes, I then added the tagliatelle and tofu and mixed them well with the sauce. Voila, there I have a black pepper tagliatelle with leeks and tofu.

Just before I started to type this post, I had a clémentine. Bought a bag of half filled clémentines that costs only £1 from Borough market. I like citrus fruits. However, one of my dentists once told me one time that citrus fruits cause erosion of enamel because of high acid concentration. Well, I guess to have citrus fruits moderately is acceptable in day-to-day life. Over consumption of anything in our diet might have more harm than benefit to our body.

As the mercury hit approximately 24 celcius degrees on Saturday, we decided to have an outdoor cooking session - BBQ.

After breakfast, we went to Borough market to buy fish and some vegetables. Borught market is not the cheapest place to shop for raw ingredients, however it does offer a lot of fresh stuff. It’s quite a monopoly when comes to the fish stall. I can’t wait for the opening of Foods Market in South Kensington.

For BBQ, we prefer seafood than meat. So, we decided to have this:
1. Prawns skewers
2. Chicken Satay
3. Sea bass

Sounds yummy?! Have a look later.

For the Satay, I made the peanut sauce that goes with it. Hmm, not quite a success, still can be improved. (I made everything from scratch and I didn’t cheat by using peanut butter!) The chicken slices were marinated for a few hours (to have best result, leave it overnight). As for the prawns, I made parsley pesto and brushed it on the prawns. Last but not least, the Sea bass - I decided to make it simple. Put some salt and pepper, a few slices of lemon, some rosemary and olive oil, that’s about it.

As we were browsing through the Michelin - London 2007 guide, this caught our eyes - Yauatcha 丘記茶苑. It is a Chinese restaurant that has been awarded with 1* Michelin. So far, we have tried the Dim Sum at Lotus Floating in the Docklands and I still think it’s good for the price that we pay (it’s cheaper, good value for the money). However, presentation and taste wise, I think Yauatcha has brought these important elements of Dim Sum to another level.

Yauatcha is located in the West End, it’s just a few minutes walk from Oxford Circus Underground station. It has blue tinted glass exterior that looks really modern and neat. As we pushed the main entrace door and walked in, we were immediately greated by the staff.

Since I booked a table 2 hours before, we didn’t have to worry that there would be a queue or a long wait which usually happens at most of the Chinese Dim Sum restaurants. In fact, I realise that there’s no such thing as queuing or waiting near to the entrace and paying full attention for the number to be called and yey we got a table now and it’s our turn to eat!!

The deco looks fabulous, very calm and chic. Near to the entrace, there’s where you can pick your dessert. There’s a selection of desserts presented nicely near to the Chocolate counter where can be boxed them away. However, they are not the usual Chinese desserts such as Egg Tarts, Mango pudding, Tao Fu Fa, etc… that you usually find on the standard Dim Sum menu. They are more Western desserts with a bit of Asian touch. Oh yeah, they sell the Macarons too?!

There’s a shelf where various types of Chinese Tea are stored. Thus, a long list of tea to be chosen from the menu. From blue tea to green tea! We decided to try blue tea, by the name Tsui Yu 翠玉. Well, it sounded that the tea was gonna be blue in colour, but, it still had the normal yellowish to greenish colour.

Dim Sum can be steamed, deep fried, grilled, and baked. Of course, there are some stir-fry dishes can also be ordered. We ordered the following

So, my favourite(s)? It is very difficult to choose. Let me start with my least favourite. I’d say that the dessert doesn’t taste as good as it looks. If we were gonna make another visit next time, the following are still not to be missed: Har Gau is always my favourite. Shanghai Siew Long Pau, great sensation of taste when you have the whole in your mouth. It’s my first time to have this kind of bun! Steamed scallops dumplings, this is very different from what I’ve tried before. It’s served and steamed on top of prawns + fish + curly parsley paste. Overall, our rating is 8 or 8.5 /10.

15-17 Broadwick Street
Soho, London W1F 0DL
Tel: 020 7494 8888