Spoilt :-)

I've been sitting here the past 10 minutes deliberating whether I should brave the cold and go to yoga...I'm erring on the negative cos my stomach is feeling a little...too full to be hanging upside down!

It's great...for someone who hates to cook, the last few days have been heavenly...I haven't actually needed to cook since Thursday!!!

Today - it being the luxury of a weekday, one of my uni friends had a lunch and made...the Korean version of Vietnamese spring rolls...(sorry forgot the name).

It was quite exotic- we sat on some kind of modern tatami(which had a really nifty heated surface underneath it). All the ingredients were laid in a large platter on a low table and there was a gas burner with a pot full of simmering water- we dipped rice paper rounds into this water.

Then we laid an interesting assortment of veggies: shredded lettuce, finely sliced mushrooms, tomatoes, mung bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, spanish onion, avocado, Vietnamese mint and coriander leaves. We then dipped shabu shabu style(thinly sliced) beef into the simmering water and added this before forming rolls- the dipping sauce was very simple but interesting compared to the usual Vietnamese one. It consisted of canned pineapple blended into a paste with fish sauce. Finely sliced chilli in this sauce is optional.

After you've satiated on 10+ rolls you throw all the left over filling into the beef stock and add noodles....

Hence this Korean dish is something like Vietnamese rice rolls X Steam Boat(what the Japanese call Sukiyaki I think).

This meal is well suited to those days where time is of no concern and you want to have a good long catch up & conversation with several friends....we also had a really delicious tea I've never seen before from Taiwan- it was brown and looked like rice but on the packet it literally translated to ginseng oolong tea(!?) - unfortunately I don't think you can get it here...We then ate savoury Korean rice cake desserts and fruit- again I have no idea what this dessert is called in Korean but it looked like Chocolate flakes on glutinous rice cake squares...the 'chocolate flakes' were some kind of red bean...

Happy Tummy! I'm really loving this week...Wednesday the food festival continues with E cooking - looking forward :-)!

p.s The only thing with all my friends cooking for me is I'm starting to feel it's only fair that I repay the favour so I'm already racking my brains over what would be suitable and minimal fuss... It's so cold I'm personally feeling like a nice PIE I think...

I love this eating other people's cooking - it refreshes and inspires so that I want to at least try cooking new things. Too bad we all live so far apart and generally have pretty busy and different schedules- how awesome would it be to have a daily "cooking pool" so we get to eat something different everyday and don't have to cook everyday?! Hmmm...maybe I should start a monthly cooking circle??