Topolabamba, a Mexican restaurant in Glasgow

Wedding shopping continues. Last weekend Emily, Maria and I went to Glasgow for wedding shoe shopping. Having gone through quite a many shops, Maria managed to find a lovely pair to go with her bridesmaid's dress. I am still searching for mine....

We did not get to have lunch till almost 3.30 in the afternoon. We thought restaurants would be still quieter as it was not evening yet but not at all - one Thai restaurant we tried did not have any tables until after 8. We decided to try Topolabamba (http://www.topolabamba.com) on St Vincent Street, a newish Mexican restaurant in Glasgow.

Luckily we got a table without any problem. In fact we came at the right timing as not long after that, people started to arriving and some had to wait.

First thing first, we got to order drinks!. Poor Emily had to drive so Maria and I decided to try cocktails.  Don't worry, Emily, you will have plenty of time for 'real' drink opps this weekend for your  hen-do!

Maria decided to have Frozen Strawberry Margaritas and I decided to have Fresh Watermelon Jose Cuervo House Margaritas. 

We were expecting that Margaritas would arrive in typical Margaria glasses but they didn't, unfortunately, however frozen strawberry was very nice and my watermelon was interesting but refreshing taste.

I must however say non-alcoholic drink of Jarritos that Emily had was very very nice.  It is 100% natural ...... SUGAR!!!  According to Wikipedia (what do we do with them!), Jarritos is a popular brand of soft drink in Mexico. It is made in fruit flavours. The word jarrito means 'little jug' in Spanish, referring to the Mexian tradition of drinking water and other drinks in clay pottery jugs. Ah, that's why picture of jugs on the label! I guess this is Mexican equivalent to our Irn Bru!

There are so many to choose from the menu despite dishes are all in one sheet - to be honest I almost lost my will to live, just looking at so many words to describe about each dish. I just wanted food already.  So I decided to focus on my Watermelon Margaritas and let girls to choose for everyone. 

So what they ordered?   From Classics menu, they chose Classic Queso Fundido (home made artisan style jack cheese fondue with garlicky roasted peppers & chorizo served with corn tortilla chips). Phew,  such a long description for just an one dish!

Also Jalapeño Poppers (Poblano peppers, Japanenos, Molito cheese and corn, breadcrumbed and served with roasted Brava sauce). Sounds yummy.

Then from Street Food menu, they ordered Shrimp, chunky avocado & salsa verde tostadas; actually this was my request. I somehow liked the sound of shrimp and avocado combination and 4 chilli marks next to it indicating this is really hot!  They also ordered crispy fried fish tacos.

What else did they order?  Guacamore with Tortilla chips, Quesadillas with char roasted vegetables filling and salt & chilli pepper fries.

There are more to choose (http://www.topolabamba.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Topolabamba-Glasgow-alacartemenu1.pdf) but we had to put a stop to this at this point.

Can't wait for the food to arrive .....

Services was very good. All waiting staff were really friendly, like really friendly and awfully cheerful like waiting staff in America.  And then our food started arriving....

First, Jalapeño Poppers. This was really really good but Brava sauce is addictively spicy and hot!

And then came Guacamore with Tortilla chips.  Real home-made like Tortilla chips, not like packet of Doritos. And Guacamore was really tasty. In fact, I could go for this right now.  We were at Costco the other day and a girl was giving away samples of tortilla chips and guacamole for promotion.  I wish we bought some that day..... however these are rather high in calories so just as well as I need to start seriously thinking about slimming down around my waist to squeeze my body in that mother of bride dress. Clearly I have not done any attempt whatsoever to do this....

And you know what, salt & chilli pepper fries were really really dyno! This is soooo bad but soooo good that we ordered another bowl later on!

More foods arrived!

Crisp fried fish tacos. Three little ones so one each. To be honest, I prefer fish tacos at Las Iguanas but it's good to try different things.

Also Queso Fundido or cheese fondue arrived. I am not sure about this but girls seem to like them.

Even more foods arrived...  Quesadillas with roasted vegetables. These were quite good.

Then Shrimp, avocado & salsa verde Tostadas!  By then we started getting full so could not enjoy this as much as we could have, such a pity!

Anyhoo, we were already too full but also still have no problem to create some space for desserts. So what we had? Churros (hot Mexian doughnuts), Mexican chocolate cup and chocolate chilli ice cream.

Well, well, well. Churros were really good. I have tried Churros at few different places in Glasgow but this was the best I have had so far.  (Mind you, I have never tried Churros in Mexico, never mind outside of Glasgow, so my knowledge of what Churros should taste and look like is obviously very limited...).

Just look at the chocolate sauce .... dipping into with hot and crunchy Churros....yum!

Mexican chocolate cup was good too; chocolate was not too sweet and really smooth and creamy. I can't remember why it is 'Mexican'; what is Mexican about it???
Maria has just told me that it had chilli in it. ... was it spicy, I can't remember though....

Then also had chocolate chilli ice cream with chopped chilli in it which sometimes stuck in the back of your throat as you try to swallow ice cream.  Interesting....

Can you see some bits of chilli?

Ah, also to mention that Maria and I went to ladies for toilet check.

The deco was a bit like rustic Mexican saloon bar or shabby chic but somehow confusing, however it was clean so it passed.

Anyway, overall we really enjoyed our foods and cocktails.  Despite the amount of food we ordered, it was not hugely expensive. Service was fairly quick too. We did come in at the right time indeed. The place was really busy by the time we left. Had we come later, we could have waited for while for our foods to arrive.

We would be happy to go back and try some more dishes, but before that, we need to go and try getting a table at that Thai restaurant we couldn't get into earlier.

That's all forks!

Baking Onion Bagel

Well, well, well, I have found an easy recipe of baking onion bagel. It's easy as even I can do it.

I found this recipe by Ruby Tandoh in page 6 of 'Cook', The Guardian's last Saturday's food supplement.  I read the recipe quickly and sounded easy so I decided to try yesterday. It worked!!!

The picture in Cook looks like this...

The recipe says you need:

75ml vegetable oil or sunflower oil (but I only used a few table spoons)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp instant dried yeast

150ml lukewarm water

300g strong white flour

1 1/2 tbsp onion granules

1 tbsp soft light brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda

Fine polenta or semolina, for dusting

This makes 6 bagels

See, nothing unusual that goes into the ingredients so it sounds even more easy and promising, does it?

I bought Chives thinking that I could add that to give more flavour!

So, here is the recipe...

1. First you fry onions for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Drain and leave to cool. I only used a few tbsp of oil and there were a lot of oil residue that seeped through a kitchen paper!  Imagine you use all 75ml, that's a lot of oil....

2. Dissolve the yeast in 2 tbsp of warm water.  When it says warm water, use from 150ml listed in the list of ingredients earlier.  I did not think of this earlier, and ended up filling a measuring cup with 150ml luke warm water and spooned out 2 tbsp of water from it, silly me!  It may be logical to you but I did not get the difference between 'instant dried yeast' and Easy Baking Yeast I already have in my cupboard.  Are these the same thing? I just used mine anyway, after all both are dried yeast.  

3. Mix the flour, onion granules, sugar and salt in a large bowl, then add the yeast (2) and 'the remaining' water. (see what I meant earlier about the water - I only realised this when it came to this point...).

4. Stir, then tip the dough from its bowl on to a clean surface and knead for 5 minutes. Yes, only faaaive minutes!  How simple that is!

Ready to knead....?  Only 5 minutes!

5. "You should notice the dough becoming smoother as you knead", Ruby says.

6. Work the fried onion into the dough until well dispersed. Well, this is not as easy as it sounds.  Well oiled chopped fried onions kept sliding and escaping from the dough as I tried to knead.  I thought I drained the oil off onions but they were still oily and onions kept sliding off the dough. That meant that you got to work even harder to imbed them right into the dough and knead even harder, adding onions little by little.

However, eventually, I managed to mix all fried onions into the dough. Phew!

7. Put the dough in a bowl, covered loosely with cling film and leave at room temperature for an hour or an hour and a half until almost doubled in size.  Ok, and off I went to watch Good Wife that I recorded last week to catch up.  I feel already domesticated!

Before ....

and after ... not sure if it got double in size but bigger anyway.

8. Ruby says "divide the dough into 6 pieces.

9. Roll each portion into a long sausage shape, then form a circle and pinch the ends firmly together. Leave to rise for 45 minutes, until puffy.  Well, it started to look more like a bagel-ish!
45 minutes to wait, so off I went to watch more TV, ha ha ha.

Does it look upside down to you? It does to me .....

10. I am not sure if they rose at all, but after 45 minutes, I decided to start cooking. Pre-heated to 180C/350F/gas mark4. Meanwhile, boil a large pan of water to the boil, add the bicarbonate of soda to the boiling water, then turn the heat down until it's gently simmering.  Add the bagels and boil for 1 minutes on each side.  Then at this point I have realised that I forgot to buy polenta or semolina flour to to dust a baking tray to prevent boiled bagels from sticking.  I had to use plain flour to dust the tray but also had to wipe each bagel off any water with kitchen paper before I put them onto the tray. Silly me!  I also realised that I had totally forgotten to mix chives through the dough when I was mixing fried onions.   Anyway, bake bagels in the oven for 25 minutes.  Once baked, transfer them onto a wire rack to cool.


...and here there are ... my first home-made bagel!  They don't look too bad, perhaps the oven temperature might have been a bit too high as they turned brown quicker than they should.

Once they were cool, cut them into half and toast them.  It looks fine inside too, and you can see real chopped fried onions!

You can then spread Philadelphia with smoked salmon.   It was yummy. Just like the ones you get fro supermarket, except there is no preservatives or additives and you know what's in them.

I am really proud of myself for making them!  I should have sprinkled rock salt for decoration and forgot, though.

I now know how to bake bagels. Ruby's recipe is that simple, however it does take a bit of your time for baking mere 6 of them.   Next time, I shall add chives, pre-heat the oven at slightly lower temperature (I think our oven tends to get too hot sometimes), remember to buy semolina or polenta flour for dusting a baking tray and sprinkle rock salt to finish off.

That's all forks!

The Tickled Trout in Milngavie, near Glasgow

Weekends have been really busy lately as it's now only about 8 weeks to Emily and Craig's wedding so we are trying to do all little things you got to do before the Big Day, including getting a hat, bag and a pair of shoes to go with my MOB (mother-of-bride) dress.

I think I mentioned before that we had found a fabulous hat shop the other day for the wedding.  So we went back there last weekend, but this time with my MOB dress to wear with a hat to try on properly to co-ordinate. I was worried if I could still fit myself into the dress as it was one and half month ago when I bought the dress and I had not made any efforts, never mind any attempts to loose weight.  Fitting myself into it is just a beginning, having an extra tummy room between the dress and my body is a challenge, especially I need to ensure that I will be able to enjoy 3 course dinner served at their wedding and write about it on my blog, of course!

Emily and Craig were also going to see someone that day who is making them a wedding cake and I was tagging along with them, hoping that I could have some sample to taste!

Anyway, the cake maker did prepare some sample sponges to take away for us to try. Emily and Craig trusted me to hold the box of sample cakes in the back of their car whilst they were driving in the front but we could not wait to try these.

With so much temptation to eat them all right away in the car, we managed to get to Milngavie where the hat shop is. I tried my MOB hat, got it sorted.  We then anxiously went straight back to the car and tried the sponges.

Despite the surrounding (we were sitting in Craig's car, in a supermarket car park!) those sample sponges were amazing!  These were absolutely delectable sponges of lemon, velvet, chocolate and carrots cakes.  My favourite was lemon one but velvet was delicious too.  Chocolate one was not overly sweet but still tasty. I am not that fan of carrot cakes but her sponge was really delicious too.

Sample sponges to go!!!

Later on Emily and Craig discussed and decided on what sponge they want for their cake and contacted the cake maker - I am not telling what sponge hey have decided on or what the cake will look like for their wedding. You just need to wait for my blog for that, ha ha ha.

By this time we were hungry and decided to go somewhere for late lunch, so we went to The Tickled Trout (http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thetickledtroutbearsden/restaurantsfood/) in Milngavie which is on its way home. For a long time I could not remember their name so I kept calling them Tick or Treat and my family understood what I meant. So now I still keep calling them Tick or Treat.

I was not driving so I could have some wine but decided to stick to sparkling water with a wedge of lime.

Craig ordered Wild Boar and Chorizo Burger, which is chargrilled and served in a crusty cob with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise with smoky tomato salsa and seasoned chips but I think he asked for it without mayonnaise.

Craig's wild boar burger.

Emily had Bacon and Brie Melt, which is melted Cornish Brie, bacon and confit tomato in a crusty brown cob, served with seasoned chips. She then added lots of chill jam. There were lots of brie...

I had Seasonal Salads with seared fillet of salmon with pineapple and lime salsa. Salad was consisted of mixed leaves, soya beans, red pepper, baby corn, tomato, cucumber and fat-free dressing.  I don't remember it came with pineapple and lime salsa, now I am writing this.  Never mind, I still enjoyed it though. Salmon was cooked well and seasoned nicely anyway. I may get this again.

Well with mineral water with lime and grilled salmon with salad, I felt really healthy. If I kept this up, I could really loose some weight and would fit myself into the MOB dress without any bother, ha ha ha.

So much for healthy diet, we decided not to order desserts but to go home and have the rest of sponges with a cup of tea. My husband also got apple turnover with lots of cream and eclairs!!!

I could never go on a diet. The following weekend, Emily, Maria and I decided to go to Glasgow to look for a pair of shoes for MOB and bridesmaids, and try a new restaurant for lunch. I think I should also buy myself a spanx, I would definitely need it.....

That's all forks!

Afternoon Tea at Thistle Hotel in Glasgow

We've recently gone to Thistle Hotel in Glasgow for an afternoon tea and we thoroughly enjoyed  it.

It was an on-line voucher deal that came with a glass of prosecco each. There were four of us, my mother-in-law Mary, my husband, my younger daughter Maria and me and Emily joined in just for a cup of coffee as she had already eaten lunch with her friends from university.  The plan was that my husband would drive for everyone (as he would be driving to pick up Mary from her house and take her home later anyway) and Maria and myself would have privilege to enjoy two glasses of prosecco each, ha ha ha!  Unfortunately Maria decided to go to Glasgow early by herself for shopping - she was hunting for a jacket to go with her dress to wear for her boyfriend's brother's forthcoming wedding (which was actually now yesterday!). So she was driving, my husband was driving, Emily was also driving - they all got their cars, Mary does not drink prosecco.  This meant I was the only one who could drink that day but there is no way I could manage 4 glasses of prosecco all by myself without falling into sleep!  In the end we gave 2 glasses to ladies at the table next to us for them to enjoy. Next time we would need to plan better about prosecco arrangement!

My husband said later on that we could have asked for soft drinks instead of prosecco. I never thought of that so I will remember that for future.

Thistle's afternoon tea was quite a delightful. First of all they all looked colourful and pretty, and they were delicious as they looked. In fact the picture does not do justice. Each one of us also had our own good sized tea pot so that we could enjoy our afternoon tea.

Scones had nice firmness yet soft and never dry.  Little sponge cakes with cherries on top - cherries were 'real' cherries, deep pink in colour instead of illuminating red ones from a tin that you may get at other places, and the sponge was soaked in tasty syrup. We could not figure out what flavour it was - apple or cherry? - but they were delicious too.

Little strawberry cream tarts were also delicious - creams were strawberry mouse instead of pink strawberry flavoured cream, it was yummy.

As I am writing this, my husband has just brought me a lovely mug of coffee with perfectly frothy milk and a chocolate eclair. Wow, what a great timing, you can't get any more apt than now to have this and write about afternoon tea experience at the same time!

Anyway, back to the afternoon tea. The delicious delights also included small cornettos filled with delightful chocolate cream decorated with chocolate mini stars!  Chocolate cream was not too sweet and each cornetto itself was just perfect size to enjoy.

I could picture a pastry chef making all these delightful delicious cakes from scratch and decorating them one by one with their hands (or fingers?), having fun with sprinkling little chocolate stars to delightful chocolate cornetto in the kitchen of Thistle Hotel, bringing a little magic to their afternoon tea.  I wonder if the same chef pictures the delight he or she brings to their afternoon tea guests with their creations when they make and decorate these lovely cakes and scones.  Well, that's how I would like to imagine as their cakes and scones were really delicious and hope other guests would appreciate their little magic with their afternoon tea.

Oh, I have almost forgotten to talk about sandwiches. As my husband and I don't eat meat, we asked for sandwiches without meat when we arrived. They asked if we could eat cheese so I was expecting we just get cheddar cheese and mayo and perhaps cucumber sandwiches. 

Well, we did get some cheese sandwich with onion jam but also got mozzarella with pesto as well as tasty egg sandwich.

However, the delightful surprise was the sandwich with marinated artichoke and roasted (?) red peppers with hummus (or I think that's what they were...).  I must say this was really delicious vegetarian sandwich; why have I never thought about putting these into sandwich, what an excellent and tasty sandwich idea!!!  And it did not end just there; when I opened the sandwich I found one side of bread was generously covered with these beautiful vegetables.  I wonder if they serve this sandwich normally at the hotel, if so I would not mind coming back here and eat this for lunch!

Lots of artichokes for filling - what a yummy surprise!

Well, I did not expect to have such a delightful afternoon tea at Thistle Hotel in Glasgow; sandwiches and cakes were really delicious.  It's a pity that the restaurant where they served the afternoon tea lacked a bit of an atmosphere however service was good, staff were very friendly and accommodating and everything they served was really delicious ... after all that's what matters the most.  

Ground floor of the hotel

The foyer of the hotel

We enjoyed everything and ate all. I hope they do this on-line deal again and we would definitely come back, but next time we would need to make sure we don't drive and get to enjoy our glasses of prosecco. 

That's all forks.