Hanwoo (Korean Beef) BBQ at specialist restaurant Daedo Sikdang (대도식당)!

👍 Great, reasonably-priced seared Hanwoo Sirloin with pickled radish fried rice.
👎 The restaurant pretty much only serves this one dish.

Hanwoo (한우) is sort of the Korean equivalent of Japanese Wagyu: It's a breed of cattle native to Korea. It's a little difficult to get Hanwoo beef outside the country, though, so we've never been able to do a comparison ... until now!

We're not sure which of the gazillion restaurants in Seoul serve the "best" Hanwoo, but we eventually settle for the Mapo outlet of Daedo Sikdang (대도식당), which is a specialty franchise that really focuses on Hanwoo Sirloin, BBQ (cast iron pan) style:


Verdict? I have no idea what "grade" of Hanwoo Sirloin we had (or even if such grading exists), but it was delicious! The meat was noticeably less tender, and less greasy/fatty (and therefore having a far less oily mouthfeel) than an A4/A5 Wagyu, but on the flipside it also felt and tasted a bit meatier/beefier.

The other dish we had in the video was the Kkakdugi Fried Rice (Kkakdugi: Cubed radish pickles/kimchi). It's cooked in the same cast iron pot used to sear your meat, so it's beefy, oily, and sour/tangy (from the pickled radish) at the same time. A great finish to the meal.


Daedo Sikdang is a small franchise and has a few outlets around Seoul. The main branch is near the Wangsimni area; use Mangoplate to find the outlet most convenient for you. As with many other Korean restaurants, English isn't spoken (well), but sign language and pointing to menus works well! Non-halal.

Newbie Kitchen: A first-timer's attempt at "BBQ" Beef Brisket (Sous Vide)!

Welcome to our second episode of Newbie Kitchen! In this series of videos we tackle a recipe or dish which we've never cooked before, purely with guidance from the almighty Internet! Today, we're trying out a rather ambitious and time-consuming cook: "BBQ" Beef Brisket!

We put "BBQ" in parentheses because we live in an apartment, so actual smoking/bbq'ing isn't an option; Let's see if sous vide works just as well!


Step 1 - Brine:
→ 1.6kg Beef Brisket (we could only find Australian grass-fed beef)
→ 90g Salt
→ 60g Brown Sugar
→ 45g Liquid Smoke

Mix all ingredients & refrigerate. Apparently if you have an injector/syringe, injecting the meat with the solution brings down the brine time to about 48 hours. We didn't inject and brined for 6 days instead.

Step 2 - Fake Smoke Ring:
→ 5g Curing Salt / Prague Powder #1

Dissolve in a small amount of brine before mixing back into the container. This step is purely for cosmetics (to make the brisket look like it was BBQ'ed) and is therefore optional.

Step 3 - Glaze & Sous Vide:
→ 80g Molasses
→ 40g Liquid Smoke
→ 20g Soy Sauce

Use a pastry brush to glaze the Brisket before Sous Vide'ing at 68°C for 24hours. Note: we had quite a bit of leftover glaze so you could probably halve the ingredients.

Step 4 - Rub:
→ 50g Salt
→ 67g Brown Sugar
→ 35g Black Pepper
→ 15g Smoked Paprika
→ 15g Mustard Powder
→ 10g Onion Powder
→ 5g Garlic powder

Use a pastry brush to glaze the Brisket before liberally sprinkling on the rub. Note: we had a significant amount of leftover rub so you could probably reduce the ingredients to a third.

Step 5 - Bake:

We finished the Brisket in a 125°C oven for almost 3 hours to bake on the bark (crust).

Finished Product & Verdict:


This Brisket was amazing! Savory and mega-juicy, with a superb bark; We dare say it's a lot better than the majority of commercial (i.e. sold in restaurants) Briskets that we've tried! The bark might perhaps do with less sugar and more black pepper though, but other than that we're absolutely delighted with the result & can't wait to try it again!

If you enjoyed the video, and/or you'd like to share more tips & tricks, we'd absolutely love to hear from you: Leave us your comments below!

Fat-tastic Wagyu Donburi (Beef Bowl) at the Fat Cow!

Fat-tastic. Because the food was fantastic, and the restaurant is named Fat Cow, get it? OK, I suck at coming up with puns, so let's talk about the food instead!

The restaurant's very Japanese-inspired main dining area has 17 counter-style seats surrounding the mini kitchen area where (i) All the meat is grilled, and (ii) All the sushi, sashimi and chirashi rice bowls are prepared. Steak and sushi seems like a rather odd combination; We'll find out if that combination works another day though as today we're here for the beef.


Fat Cow is first and foremost a steakhouse - serving up a choice of Aussie/US Angus and Wagyu cuts alongside A3-A5 Japanese Black Cattle steaks from several different prefectures. Dinner prices are expectedly pricey with 300gm portions running up to well over $300 after service charge and taxes. But for the less well-heeled among us (i.e., yours truly), their set lunches are around the $30-$50 range and represent much better value!

Each set lunch comes with an appetizer trio of salad (greens were fresh but the dressing was excessively sweet), miso soup (nothing too special) and scallop, crabmeat and prawn chawanmushi (served somewhat warm/lukewarm instead of piping hot like most other places).


There are other choices ranging from chirashi (raw seafood over rice), curry, grilled miso cod and pork loin tonkatsu on the menu but we're only interested in the beef, starting off with The Fat Cow Wagyu Donburi ($39). This comes with a perfectly cooked onsen tamago and grilled-over-Japanese-binchotan-charcoal Wagyu strips over rice. The strips are delicious, with a wonderful aroma that characteristic taste of meat grilled over a hot charcoal fire. Of course they don't have that same melt-in-your-mouth, buttery goodness as A5 Kobe or other premium Japanese Wagyus; but at this price range it really is pretty damn good.


The Fat-Foa Gura Don ($43) is next up: This rice bowl is topped with glazed, teppan (hot plate) wagyu beef with chunks of foie gras. Foie gras and beef, two ingredients that go oh-so-awesomely well together. Compared to the donburi you lose out on the chargrilled flavour but gain the creamy, buttery, fatty goodness of foie gras. Both are equally good, so order one of each and share :)


A scoop of ice cream rounds out the set lunch - today was honeycomb vanilla ice cream which was decent but not spectacular.


So there you have it - gorgeous rice bowls for lunch at a top steakhouse at a relatively affordable price point. There are one or two petty niggles: the rice-to-meat ratio is skewed a little too heavily to the rice side, and hot green tea costs $5/person, but all things considered we'd highly recommended a visit if you're in the area.

Fat Cow is at Camden Medical Centre, about 1 km walk (or bus) from Ion Orchard. Reservations recommended. Non-halal.

In search of the Perfect Steak™ - Semi Frozen Steak Method.

The darling and I are big steak lovers. Or perhaps more accurately, I'm the big steak lover, and she has to come along for the ride. We've come a long way since our first home-cooked steak blogpost three years ago - progressing from el-cheapo grill pan to Sous Vide - and now we've tried what might be our favorite method thus far, courtesy of Modernist Cuisine: The Frozen Steak!


So medium rare. Much juicy. Yums!
The traditional way of cooking a steak has huge drawbacks. In order to get a nice crust you have to cook fast and hot. But because steak cooks from the outside in, by the time the middle is at your preferred temperature, the outer layers have become a grey shade of dry, well done meat.


Image courtesy of Colin McNulty
The solution, then ... is to freeze your steak before searing. Start off with a good piece of meat - like this beautiful $76.90/kg Wagyu Striploin - and plop it uncovered in the freezer on some parchment paper for about 30 minutes. You can see in the photo below that we used kitchen towels: Not a good idea as the steak's juices may saturate the towel and make it hard to remove.


From there just use your favorite searing method to get the maillard reaction going. Blowtorch'ing is the most convenient and fuss-free method but we still prefer oil in a smoking hot skillet. You'll note that we've used quite a lot of oil - this allows a greater surface area of the steak to get scorched by the oil since it's hard and may not conform to the flat pan all that well.


Once both sides are seared nicely we stuff a probe in the middle of the meat and bake in the oven at 70°C, at our chosen target temperature of 55°C (sort of in between Rare and Medium Rare). You can decide what temperature you want, of course! Rare starts at about 52°C, and Medium Well is at about 65°C. Any higher and honestly you might as well not bother eating steak.


Now the huge drawback for this method is controlling the cooking time. it takes anywhere from 30-50 minutes to reach a 55°C internal temperature, which is fine if your diners aren't fussy about waiting. But if you've got a hungry couple waiting at the dinner table and the thermo only reads 45°C ... well you get the idea :)


That yellow froth is milk solids from the melted butter
Now that your steak's ready you can garnish, season and serve - no resting necessary! For today we just melted a little butter and poured it over the top, with some salt and pepper to taste. Re-visiting this cross-section photo we can see there is a very minimal grey band of well done meat - 90% or more of the steak is perfect and just the way we like it. Juicy, tender, delicious!


So there you have our new favorite steak cooking method. We prefer this over sous vide because with a very cold steak you can actually put more heat on the sear to get a proper crust without worrying about the insides overcooking. We've also felt (subjectively) in the past that sometimes sous vide steaks turned out dry - which other blogger home chefs are noticing as well. Having said that, if we were planning a dinner party we would still go with sous vide because of the huge time window for serving the steaks to the guests.

Bon Appétit!

The Local Grill - Best Steakhouse in Johannesburg, South Africa!

South Africans are huge meat eaters. I've not been to any other place that has as many steakhouses, grillhouses and restaurant chains with steak and various grilled meats on the menu as the two cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town. Perfect for us, as we're huge meat lovers ourselves! During our trips we visited some of the top-recommended steak joints around town to see how well their meat stacks up against steaks in other countries.

Of all these places, the Local Grill is by some margin the best steakhouse of them all. They don't necessarily serve the best steak (as we will see later on in this series), but for the steak lover who likes comparing wet aged vs dry aged (or grain vs grass fed) cows, or for the newbie who doesn't even know what 'ageing' is, there's no better place in the country.


For starters, you know you're in a place that takes its' steak seriously the moment you walk in the door. There are huge chalkboards everywhere listing all the different cuts of beef and how many days each cut has been aged. The Local Grill focuses primarily on two South African beef providers - Chalmar Grainfed Beef and Greenfields Grassfed Beef, all aged, of course.


The 'education' doesn't stop there, though. Ask your waiter/waitress if you can 'tour the kitchen' and she summons no less than the owner himself (Steven Maresch), who's all too happy to oblige. The tour starts off with the development kitchen, where we learn that Steve's currently experimenting on grilling steaks on a block of Himalayan Rock Salt that's been pre-heated for 25-30 minutes in a smoking hot grill.


We're then ushered into the walk-in refrigerator, where the various meats are in various stages of ageing. Bone-on Sirloin, Bone-on Rib-Eye, some of them wet aged in sealed plastic, others dry ageing on the racks. Here we learn that there isn't all that much difference between grain and grass-fed cows ("if you blindfolded me I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference 7 out of 10 times," says Steve). The Local Grill essentially dry ages any cut that has a bone, and wet ages everything else, apparently because the lack of a bone and/or a relatively thick cover of protective fat makes that cut difficult to dry age properly.

The tour complete, we head back to the dining room to place our orders - starting with a Butternut Soup (ZAR 51 / SGD 6.42). It's creamy, it's sweet (without being cloy) and surprisingly delicious.


The soup isn't half as good as the Marrowbones (ZAR 46 / SGD 4.80) though. I have to say I don't care for the parsley salad, but the marrow is sweet, succulent, juicy and oh-so-sinful. Plus there's such a caveman-like appeal in picking up the bones with your hands and sucking the goodness out of them.


The seasonal 'breed of the month' was Brahman (a breed of cow with a large camel-like hump just behind its' neck); and we try the Wet Aged Rib Eye. With wet aging, the beef ages in its own blood/juices, so the resulting steak tastes ever so slightly more 'bloody' than a dry-aged one.


Speaking of dry-ageing, we also try the Greenfields Dry Aged Rib Eye on the Bone (500gm, ZAR 227 / SGD 28.60). This steak was a little less juicy than the Brahman, but with a more intense beefier flavour. Both steaks were expertly grilled to our required medium-rare; and had a wonderful char on the crust. However we thought that both steaks could have done with a few extra pinches of salt.


So while we found this our favorite steakhouse, the meat was a little underseasoned for our tastes and hence we didn't rank these as our favorite steaks. This is just a small complaint, though, and especially considering the very reasonable prices, we'd most definitely heartily recommend the Local Grill to any steak and meat lover. The beef is all sourced from halal providers but the restaurant does also serve alcohol and pork ribs.

The Local Grill has a few different branches, but the one to go to is at Parktown North on 7th Avenue; call up +27 (0)11 880 1946 for reservations. Closed on Sundays.

DeBurg (Home of the Burgasm) - Singapore's Best Burger? Hmmm ...

DeBurg, home of the Burgasm. With a slogan like that, how can we possibly not pay a visit? We take the drive over to Bukit Merah Lane 1 on a rainy weeknight, and place our orders at the counter. Quite a few signs proclaim loudly that 'burgers are not fast food,' so we take our seats in what can probably be best described as an atas kopitiam and prepare for the wait.


Our burgers arrive about 40 minutes after our orders are placed which could really suck depending on how hungry you are. My Bacon Cheeseburger costs SGD15.50 for a 200gm patty of Aussie striploin.


The darling decides to go a bit easy on the meat and downsizes her Mushroom Cheeseburger order to a 100gm patty for SGD9.00. The 'mushroom' in this burger isn't a whole portobello mushroom, but instead it's mushroom gravy.


For both burgers, we were somewhat disappointed given all the glowing reviews all over the net. We thought that the flavor profile for the burgers were impeccable, with great choices of ingredients and proper seasonings. However, the patties were (in my opinion) overcooked and sorely lacking in the 'juiciness' department, and the burger buns were dry. We were also put off by the horrendous sides - salad bordering on being inedible thanks to way too much balsamic vinegar in the dressing, and chips and tater tots that had obviously been fried ten or twenty minutes before the burgers were ready.


Taking into account the wait time, how inconvenient it is to get here by public transport, and how difficult it is to get a parking spot at peak hours, I honestly don't understand all the hype. If you live in the area then sure, it's a great place for some relatively cheap burgers, but for the rest of us it makes more sense to satisfy any burger cravings over at Omakase Burger, which is also as inconveniently located but which comes with juicy patties and freshly fried truffle fries. Non-halal.

De Burg
Blk 119 Bukit Merah Lane 1
Closed on Mondays

Where to eat in Japan - Kobe Beef in Steakland Kobe!

For the Meat-Eating Foodie, few foods evoke as much emotion as the words Kobe Beef. The meat from this prized heifer has been elevated to heavenly heights thanks to rumours that the cows listen to music, feast on sake and beer and receive hand massages. Unfortunately for the romantics among us these rumours are largely inaccurate. What is accurate though is that the strict criteria for use of the Kobe Beef trade mark means that you know you're gonna be in for one heck of a meal.

There are a myriad of restaurants in the town of Kobe serving Kobe beef, but the darling and I settle on what is probably the most popular joint - Steakland Kobe (ステーキランド神戸館). Located on that strip just north of the Non-JR Sannomiya station (三宮駅). The doors in the restaurant open up to reveal a decor not unlike the classic American steakhouse (with dark wood paneling everywhere) - except that there are multiple Teppanyaki stations peppered throughout the dining area. No points for guessing how our meat is going to be cooked, then.


Between the two of us we split one order of Special Kobe Beef Sirloin Set (¥5,480 for 200gm) and one order of Special Kobe Beef Tenderloin Set (¥5,980 for 160gm). The raw Sirloin soon arrives table-side looking more marbled than anything I've ever eaten - though naturally the tenderloin isn't as richly fatty. You might notice that some of the marbling strands do seem a little thick - which is a reason why some connoisseurs prefer the other two more finely-marbled wagyu heavy hitters - matsusaka and yonezawa beef.


No matter; onward to the cooking! As is pretty standard with teppanyaki places we also get a number of side ingredients - shimeji mushrooms, garlic, cucumber and konnyaku jelly. The meat is then also seared on the hot plate (seasoned only with salt and pepper and nothing else as to not ruin such top quality beef) and sliced up into bite-sized pieces. At this stage the entire restaurant does get a pretty strong beefy aroma in the air.


And then we finally get to eat. The fats in the Tajima cattle melt at a much lower temperature point than normal cows, so our medium rare chunks simply burst with a mixture of fatty and meaty juices and flavor as we chew. We're also served a bowl of rice to go with the meal but we find ourselves pairing rice with vegetables and eating the beef on its' own just to savour the unadulterated flavour.

For me the flavour, texture and juiciness of the meat is unparalleled by anything I've eaten in the past; however I do find myself wishing that it was cooked as a steak in the Western sense - i.e. seared at 1000++ degrees to get that slightly charred crust on the outside.


To finish off the meal you get a choice of hot or cold coffee or an orange juice. Coffee was adequate.


We feel that the price we paid was very value for money considering the quality of the meat on offer. Having said that, 200gm (or 160gm) is a nicely-sized portion for lunch, but perhaps might be a tad insufficient for a dinner meal. Or for those among you with bigger appetites. If you're ever on holiday in the Kansai region (Osaka or Kyoto, for example), it really is worth your time to take the 30-minute train ride to Kobe just to eat at Steakland. Note that if you're arriving via JR, the JR Sannomiya station is a 5-minute walk away.

At time of writing, ¥1,000 = SGD 12.60.

Prime Rib & Lobster Tails at Lawry's

I've always loved Prime Rib. I wouldn't say I love it more than a good steak - I think they're both different ways of satisfying my inner carnivore. There aren't many restaurants that serve it, though, and fewer still that specialize in it - one of them being Lawry's!


If you couldn't tell from the sign outside the door, Lawry's is the place to go to for Prime Rib. It isn't by any means a well-kept secret, either - the restaurant is completely full even on a weekday night. In any case, we get the waitress (dressed up in a cute maid uniform) to take our orders, and whet our appetites on the bread roll. Which sort of sucks - it's as plain a piece of bread as plain can be. Good thing the butter's nice!


Every order of Prime Rib comes with Lawry's "signature" spinning salad bowl. I put "signature" in parentheses because while it's a fancy bit of showmanship ... well ... it is just a salad bowl in an ice bath.


Although it tastes rather ordinary, we're impressed that the waitress also hands us chilled forks with which to eat our salads. Nice touch that more restaurants should emulate, really.


We follow-up the salad with Atlantic Lobster Tails (SGD52.00 for two tails). Grilled and served out of their shells with drawn butter - they're fresh, springy and evoke feelings of the sand and the sea.


After we're done, the chef comes over with the Lawry's signature silver cart, and carves the Prime Rib at your table. The different cuts on offer differ only by size / weight: California Cut costs SGD63, Lawry's Cut costs SGD83. Lawry's Cut is a 200gm piece of meat - so adjust your appetites accordingly. Other options are the English Cut (three thin slices) and the Diamond Jim Brady (extra large for extra large appetites) cut.


Served with Mashed Potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding, it's a perfectly tender, pink (almost) all the way through cut of juicy prime meat, generously doused in Lawry's beefy brown sauce. Heavenly! For those of you who squeal at the sight of red steak, it's actually not blood at all. Without going into too much detail, you can probably quite accurately think of it as the juices of the meat.


Dinner here isn't cheap - after taxes it came up to $233 for the both of us, but in our opinions worth the money. As a special occasions kind of place, of course. If you're not a prime rib guy, Lawry's also serves steaks and pork chops; I have no idea if they do those as well as they do the Prime Rib though.

Lawry's is in Mandarin Gallery over on Orchard Road - do make reservations to avoid disappointment. Non-halal.

Rocking out at Hard Rock Cafe, Batu Ferringhi, Penang

Hard Rock Cafe was established in 1971, and came to KL 20 years later in 1991. Yet I've somehow or other never gone to a Hard Rock Cafe, and that's even despite me spending the better part of the 200x decade in the U.S. So anyway since in my latest short makan trip to Penang I stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, it was as good a time as any to pop my HRC cherry!

(That, and the darling was also a first-timer. So we both lost our Hard Rock Cafe virginity together :P)


Inside of HRC was actually quite dark. It's nicely decorated, though of course not in the 'fine dining' way, but rather in the 'rock n roll' way. There's rock n roll memorabilia everywhere, and LCD TVs blasting rock songs from the 60's all the way to modern rock. Oh, and a stage in the corner.


Speaking of memorabilia, we sat right next to an axe (that's slang term for electric guitar for all you classical music lovers) autographed by Weezer!


Incidentally, don't come here if you're looking to impress a first date on a romantic evening. Unless she's a rocker chick. The music is loud! Menu has nice rock touches as well:


So, does the food rock as hard as the ambience? The darling has the Legendary 10oz Burger ($42.00). Packed with fried onion ring, seasoned bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato and pickles and of course the patty, it's pretty delicious. However the bacon, being non-pork bacon, is a let down. Because eating turkey, beef or chicken bacon is the same thing as going to one of those Chinese vegan shops to eat fake meat made out of soy (or whatever). Pork or nothing!


I go for a 2-meat combo of Brisket and Ribs in the Hickory Smoked Bar-B-Que Combo (MYR58.00). There's a third choice - chicken - but I'm in a mooooo(d) for cow. The beef is BBQ'ed quite nicely, although some of the rib meat was perhaps a tad dry. And although the sauce is pretty nice, it does overpower the taste of the meat somewhat. Portion is huge, had lots of trouble finishing it.


I forgot what these desserts are! One of them was creme brulee, the other one, chocolate of some sort. To be honest they were just so-so only lah. Not bad, but also ultimately quite forgettable.


So that's that! Total bill was over a hundred after taxes and service charge. I'm not sure what the scheduling for the live band is, sees to be past 10.30 or 11.00pm, so unless you're here for a very late dinner you'll have to make do with rockin' music videos.

Hard Rock Cafe is located in Hard Rock Hotel, Penang - on the Batu Ferringhi Beach.