Medan Day 2 - City Tour

After Lunch, first stop is Annai Velangkanni.
It's a Catholic church built with the style of Tamil Hindu Architecture by an Indian Priest. It's free admission but you have to wear pants or long skirt.

The premises contains 2 main stories and a small tower of seven stories. It's quite hidden within the private houses. Have to use GPS. Road signs are not very useful here.

Next we went to Maimoon Palace.

Admission $5000 Rp.

A well known landmark in Medan, built by the King of Deli in 1888. The palace covers a large area with 30 rooms. But you can only visit a few. The rest are out of bounds. It has become a tourist destination not soley because of age but because of its unique interior design, mixing Malayan cultural heritage, Islam, Spanish, Indian and italian style.

The last stop was Mesjid Raya Mosque.

We didn't stop here but drove by as it was getting late for tea break!

hah.

lazy lah.

xoxo

velle

Medan Day 2 - Tip Top and Avocado Drink

Dropped by Tip Top bakery to buy some cakes because the bride highly recommended their cakes to us. It's still baked traditionally using wood oven so the taste is something which you cannot get from normal ovens.

heard that their western food is quite good and popular with the locals too.

setting is very nostalgic and i guess people come here for the ambience as it's within city center.

Not sure whether have you heard of the cafe at Kapindo Elektric? The parents opened a car workshop while the children set up a cafe at the workshop and their coffee cafe has grown into a popular hangout spot for the young!

it's like a secret hideout for the locals.
The coffee brew here is quite good with a good variety of flavours. The avocado espresso is their specialty.

 Above: our avocado drink with a shot of espresso.

Potent!

Tip Top Cakes

Medan Day 2 - Dinner

Medan Popiah - unfried (wrapped in banana leaf) and fried (wrapped in paper). Eat with pink spicy sauce. Has lots of fried shallots inside and there's char siew too?

 Passionfruit juice is a local drink favourite in Medan

 We tried their kambing(mutton) soup too. Taste like back home.

 Fried pork! It's like siew bak back home.

Soup on the side and sang saak (?) not sure of the spelling but it's quite popular here in Medan

Medan Day 1 - Getting there

Our ex-colleague was getting married in Medan and so we flew to attend her big day. I managed to book 2 pairs of return tickets from Jetstar Asia. This is the first time we are travelling without any checked in baggage and i think i will never try again!

I wanted to even not bring my heels to lighten my 7kg hand luggage. With really minimal clothings, it was 7kgs already!!! I attended the wedding, slightly underdressed without any accessories. But I brought my heels on flight and wore my earrings. Couldn't beat the indo aunties who were all out to dress their best.

anyway the bride is not me.
I'm just happy that I'm there to witness this happy occasion!

Once we touched down, we bought train tickets that stopped at Medan city and the lady at the counter told us that we could walk to our hotel from the train station. While waiting for our boarding time, we ate at A&W because hubs wanted to try their fried chicken. And we had the root beer.

5pm was the boarding time and it took about 50mins to the city.

Scenery along the way

Once we reached Medan City station. OMG! the traffic is horrendous. Think Ho Chi Minh but with cars instead. Even though our hotel was 2 streets down, we really didn't dare to cross the 4 lane traffic with our luggage. So we took the becak. I thought it was really funny!

We saw a bridge and wanted to use it to cross the road initially but looking closer, the bridge was up but there was no stairs to go up!!!! Serious?

Finally we checked into the hotel in one piece. safe and sound.

Traffic in Medan, view from our hotel window.

Can you see the white mega big screen from our window? That's where the train station was. And we had to cross the 4 lane road, walk through Medeka Square and cross another 4 lane before we reach the hotel.

Good nights!

signing off

velle

Velle Can Cook - Cast Iron Pot Chicken Mushroom Rice

Been wanting to make use of my cast iron pot which i redeemed with my Fairprice points. Finally I found the chance - a weekend where i could stay at home and cook!

Here's my recipe (serves 4 adults)

Ingredients

• Chicken thigh: 6 pieces
• Honey: 2 tbsp + 2 tbsp
• Light soy sauce: 6 tbsp
• Unsalted butter: 3 tbsp
• White onion: 1, diced
• Rice: 2 cups, washed
• Cooked chestnut: 300g (i bought already peeled packets ones )
• Mushroom: 400g sliced (i used shitake fresh ones)
• Chicken stock: about 6.5 cups
• Thyme: leaves from a few stalks
• Ground blackpepper: to taste

Instructions

1. Marinate chicken with honey & light soy sauce.
2. Leave overnight in fridge.
3. Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Heat wok. Add chicken into wok, together with the sauces.
5. Brown chicken for a few min on both sides. Remove from wok and set aside.
6. Heat butter in cast iron pot. Fry onion till browned and translucent.
7. Add rice. Stir to mix in with onion.
8. Add chestnuts, mushrooms and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer.
9. Place chicken thighs and breasts on top of rice, pressing down to level with rice.
10. Drizzle 2 tbsp honey onto chicken. Sprinkle with thyme and black pepper.
11. Cover pot with lid and place in oven. Bake for 45min.
12. Serve hot.