Recent trip to Phuket

This is about my short trip to Phuket about 5 months ago.

It was a free and easy trip and was an opportunity to laze about and enjoy the slower pace of life there :)

We arrived in Phuket in the late afternoon and had our dinner at one of the seafood restaurant along the seaside. We had a couple of seafood dishes and a vege for dinner.

Pineapple Juice in the foreground

Chilli squid, grilled plain lobster and grilled prawns

Closed up view of the lobster. It looks plain but the lobster was grilled very nicely and the taste of the meat was wonderful.

Closed up view of the grilled prawns. It was not that good. Felt that it's taste was a bit too blend.

Stired fried squid with chilli. This dish was very good. Favourite dish :)

Stired fried kang kong with chilli. It is not spicy enough :(

For the next 2 morning breakfast, we had the buffet spread provided by the hotel.

It was quite a good spread as it was a mixture of local food and international breakfast.

Hot items selection which range from sausages/ham/pancake to fried koay teow (thai style) and some stired fried local dishes.

Fruits and desert selection. The pineapple were super sweet. Yummy!

Cold cuts/cheese and cerel selection

Bread selections. Me prefer the one I had in Holland.

After which we went for a day tour around phuket island. We were brought to some of their local places of religion as well as to the highest point on phuket island. The picture below was taken there. We also managed to go to a cashew nut factory to observe the manufacturing process for the cashew nut.

After the tour, the local guide brought us to a local coffee shop for lunch. We had their local noodle dish which is a stired fried noodle as well as pork satay and pork intestine satay which are shown below.

Stired fried noodles with fish cake, sotong and prawns. It was ok.

Pork satay and Pork intestine satay. This was a favourite of mine and really enjoyed it. The only downside is that the pork was too thinly sliced hence it was not so juicy.

After lunch, we proceeded to walk the various street stalls and the shopping areas along the beach front. We had our dinner at one of the more modern shopping belts. The below photo is the water display in front of the restaurant that we had our dinner.

It was a quite well done up Thai Restaurant. We ordered some appertizer and main dishes to try out. In general, all the dishes were quite good though I had a few favourites.

Prawn toast. I loved this dish it was crisp on the outside and the interior is full of the prawn flavour.

Tom Yum soup in the background and squid cooked with garlic. I liked the squid dish but not so keen on the Tom Yum Soup.

Egg stirred fried with pork.

Kang Kong fried with garlic

Deep fried fish with curry sauce. This was surprising good.

Pineapple Rice. It was not very good as I felt the rice did not have enough of the pineapple flavour.

Recent visit to Holland

This is a pictorial summary of the various dishes I tried during my recent trip to Holland. It was a 2 days 3 nights visit to Holland. During the duration of the visit, we stayed at the Hotel Amstelveen which also include the morning buffet.

The following photos are showing the offering for the morning buffet.

Various selection of breads

Some fruits and cereals

Cold cut selection as well as bacon, sausages, baken beans and egg in various style

Variety of jams and spreads to go with the bread.

What I had for breakfast.

There were so many variety of breads on offer but my favourite is not the dutch bread but the croissant. It was light in touch and crisp on the outside. For the spread, there were also a lot of variety but did not really fancy it as still prefer bacon and sausages.
I really enjoyed my breakfast during my stay at the hotel.

For the first day lunch, we had it in the town centre of Amsterdam after our morning guided tour of the city. Amsterdam is a lovely city with a rich history and the building architecture is very lovely.

The below photos are some of the pictures of Amsterdam on a Saturday morning.

For lunch, we went into one of the local cafe. The slight problem is the menu were all in dutch but thankfully, they are able to communicate well in English. Hence we just ordered without reference to the menu. We ordered the day set which includes a soup and a main dish.

We tried the vegetable soup and the tomato soup. The vegetable soup was not nice as the base of the soup was not very strong. My aunt was jokingly said it was just like boiled vegetable. For myself, I had the tomato soup. It had a strong flavour of tomato. Maybe too strong for my liking as I did not really fancy it. The garlic bread was nice though.

Hence for the starters, it was a bit disappointing. However the main course is different. It was very good and the portion is also quite big. My mum mention the beef steak is excellent. For the grilled salmon, it was nicely prepared. The amount was so much till we were not able to finish the fries and the mushroom.

Grilled chicken at the top of the picture and chicken burger with a generous amount of melted cheese.

Beef steak and grilled salmon with accompaniment of grilled mushroom.

For dinner, we also had it in the city centre so that we can continue our shopping after our meal. At least the shops there close later than in London.

Some salmon appertizer. (Forgot the name) Very delicious though

Too creamy and cheesy for my liking though the bacon was nice.

For the next day tour, we went to Volendam and a few other places. For lunch, we had it at Volendam which is famous for their seafood as it is a port town.

For the meal, the stirred fried prawns was very delicious. However for the fish and chip, they prefer the version in England which is beer battered. For the one they had, it uses another form of batter. For desert, we tried the dutch pancake. It is very thin and crispy and you can place various types of sugar and syrup on top of it.

Dutch pancake

For the dinner, after all the travelling, we decided to visit the nearby restaurant 'TGeregt. We each ordered a set meal each which comprises of an starter of your choice, a lobster and shrimp soup, a main course and a desert. ( Quite expensive though about 30 plus Euros)

Once we arrived, they gave us a complimentary appetizer which is shown below. It is a spread on a bread crumb. It was quite tasty.

The first starter to arrive is the sauteed mussels which is shown below. This dish was excellent. The mussels were very nicely done and there were so many :)

The other starter we ordered is the veal meat with some fruit based sauce. The veal meat is at the base of the plate and it is very thinly sliced and well marinated. Some more the presentation is also quite visually appealing.

The below is the lobster with prawn soup. It was not thick enough but in terms of the taste it was really good but the prawn was more like shrimps but it was plentiful.

The next 3 pictures are the main courses. The dishes were very well prepared and they were delicious. The only downside is the quantity is really quite small. Another interesting thing is for the accompanyment, it is served separately as can be seen in the last of the 4 photos below.

Lastly the below are the deserts that we had which is the creme brulee and apple strudel as per shown below. For the creme brulee, they did the carmelisation in front of you as can be seen in the photos below.

Apple strudel with whipped cream.

In general, the trip to Holland was really enjoyable and also managed to try some of the European style cruisine which is quite different from what is found in Asia.