Spaghetti carbonara

I have always assumed that carbonara sauce requires the use of cream, and so I was quite surprised to find a recipe that omits it. This is taken from the BBC website. I am just going to cut and paste the recipe here.

Ingredients
½ pack fresh spaghetti
¼ pack wild mushrooms
30g/1oz butter
2 egg yolks
50g/1½oz parmesan cheese


Method
1. Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water for 3 to 4 minutes.
2. Fry the mushrooms in the butter, until they darken and release their juices.
3. In a bowl lightly beat together the yolks, parmesan cheese and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. Stir the fried mushrooms into the egg mixture.
5. Drain the pasta, add to the sauce and stir immediately.

I added a bit of fresh parsley as a contrast to the richness of the cheese, and also to get rid of it since it's expiring soon. By the way, M says that this is fake carbonara as there's no cream. I am just going to ignore her.

Eat Thai

We were back at St Christopher's place today to meet M's friend from Singapore and we found a Thai restaurant there that we are likely to frequent from now on. It's called Eat Thai. Click on the title of this entry to get to their webpage. The restaurant itself has a simple layout; no gaudy statues of Buddhas or monkeys on tables or hanging on walls. It's just white, minimalist decor: tables and chairs; the bare minimum. You can tell that this is the kind of furnishing that I prefer.

We ordered special seafood cakes served with sweet chilli sauce, steamed king scallops with red curry paste, coconut cream, egg, palm sugar, fish sauce, basil leaves and kaffir lime leaves and green curry with chicken. There's not much I can say about the seafood cakes and the green curry except that it's competently cooked; for me, I can't tell the difference between exceptional green curry and average green curry. I can only tell when it's mediocre. The scallops, on the other hand, were impressive. The scallops were fresh and meaty. Served on their shells, they came with a rich red curry paste. I have never contemplated eating scallops with red curry paste and I was pleasantly surprised that it was an excellent combination. Egg white was drizzled on top of the paste and I think it was to tone down the spice. The basil and lime leaves added a further complexity to its taste, a natural freshness that contrasted well with the curry. In all, it's just that one dish that really impressed me. M and I wouldn't mind going back there again just to try out the rest of its menu.