For the mains, we decided on a meaty steak! Following the tips from our own blog (which I believe we should), the steaks turned out very well. Only with a few turns and some time in the oven, the steaks turned out just nice; charred on the outside and juicy on the inside. Seasoning? Well, we just used salt and a slight pinch of pepper. There was also a delicious side of mash potato made by my brother and nicely charred cheese sausages oozing with goodness. On the sides of the dish for colour, I grilled a couple of slices of capsicum. All in all, it was a sumptuous dinner all in the comfort of home.

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It’s not as hard as it seems, although the themes we list below are for Wordpress (because we use Wordpress for this website), the tips below can be used for any format of website.

Some tips on choosing a theme for your food blog:

White background, black font

Since a food blog is all about the pictures and the descriptions of the food/ restaurant/ recipe, you don’t want to distract your readers from this fact. Black font on a white background is proven to be the easiest and most natural way for people to read.

If your blog is mostly pictures, you can consider a black background, but only if your post is made up of 80% pictures or more.

Blog Width

Stick to a fixed width template, where it looks the same width no matter what size screen you view it on. The reason for this is that problems will come up with some old computers and computers with small screens if your blog automatically adjusts it’s width to suit, such as pictures and fonts overlapping etc.

The width for the body of content (where you write your posts) should ideally be between 450px – 500px wide, to maintain a nice sentence length as well as to keep pictures nice and small (file size) and load faster.

Two or Three Column Themes

Sticking to a theme with 2 or 3 columns will make your blog less cluttered. Since it’s all about the photos and descriptions, this is where you want people to focus. The cleaner the better.

The Themes

We’ve compiled a list of themes which we think would work well as food blogs, most adhering to the tips we’ve suggested above, but some not, just to give it some variety.

They’re all free to download and are taken from the Wordpress official website. You’ll need a self hosted Wordpress blog to be able to install these.

If you’d like a custom website for your blog or restaurant, contact our Web Design department for more information.

Constructor

Wordpress Constructor Theme, it’s many-in-one theme (six layouts, configured colors, fonts and slideshow, widget ready). Build your own theme on settings page. For Wordpress version 2.7+ (include 2.8)

Get this theme>>

Arras Theme

Magazine-styled theme with tons of features. Ready for alternate styles. Includes featured posts slideshow, different post layouts, multi-tabbed sidebar, custom single meta fields for reviews and many other customisable features.

Get this theme>>

iNove

Inspired by MacZone.sk, created by mg12. It is very stylish, widget supported and doesn’t require any plugin.

Get this theme>>

jQ

WordPress theme with two columns, four widget areas and loads of jQuery functions (dropdown navigation, font resizing and more). The theme options include a movable sidebar, custom colours, excerpts on index pages, category or page navigation, different font and colour schemes.

Get this theme>>

Ani World

Ani World WordPress Blog Theme designed by ani world!

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iBlog2

The iBlog2 theme by Pagelines, inspired by Apple. Support for native WordPress ‘post thumbnails’ added in 2.9. Change options in appearance > iBlog options. This version is localization ready, so send us your translations.

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Sliding Door

A unique template featuring sliding images in the header based on phatfusion imagemenu. Look at theme homepage to see the menu in action – the preview does not work on wordpress.org!!!! Sliding images in header link to pages, or can be redirected using the Page Links To plugin. The theme has a comprehensive support forum to help you get started at http://mac-host.com/support

Get this theme>>

Good Theme Lead

Profi WordPress theme with five colour schemes, two/three columns, six widget areas and tons of functions. Automatic post thumbnail, Featured posts, Control Panel in sidebar, Dropdown page and category menu. Powerfull theme options menu (including: Logo change, Exclude categories feature, Category description, Customizable sidebar layout, great Ads manager, About Me image and text feature, Featured video section, Social Manager).

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Duo Tone

A photo blogging theme. Colors change to match the photo.

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Patagonia

Patagonia is a very good looking Wordpress Theme with a clean design. This theme is search engine optimized and compatible with the latest wordpress version. Patagonia Theme supports Tag clouds, categories, dinamic widgets, gravatars. You can also visit our site at: http://www.wpthemesplanet.com/

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Fusion

Light and clean Wordpress theme from digitalnature. Localization support and theme options available

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simpleX

Simple and Clean WordPress Blog Theme designed by WPshoppe! Now with Theme Options to choose different color combinations.

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Vigilance

A lean and clean Wordpress theme featuring standards and search friendly code. A built in Theme Options menu allows for serious customization.

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Dialogue

A light and easy to customise professional & multilangual wordpress theme (french, german, polnish, english). Dialogue is XHTML and CSS validated and widget ready!

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StudioPress

A clean, Adsense-ready WP theme.

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Eos

Eos is a professionally designed, clean and elegant theme inspired by the colors of an aurora. Available in several languages. Leave us a comment on our website: SRSsolutions.com

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Tropicala

Simple, modern, lightweight

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Modern Style

Modern Style Theme with theme options page. Fixed-width, widget ready, two colums, right sidebar support hierarchical categories. Compatible with Wordpress 2.8 and higher.

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This Just In

Compatable with WordPress version 2.7 and higher. A clean, optimized with enhanced archives and a large header image, designed for professional and/or photography blogs. This version adds support for threaded comments and sticky posts.

Get this theme>>

Panorama

2 column theme, compatible with WP2.8 and threaded-comments – add your own header image – 6 backgrounds, left or right sidebar, link/hover colors, jQuery dropdown page menu, and twitter badge all fully customizable – licenced under the GPL. Language localization supported, DA, AR, DE, FR, IT, NL, ES, SE.

Get this theme>>

We hope you found this post useful. If you’d like custom web design, please feel free to contact our web design department for more information.

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Malaysia

At the office, there’s office politics, there’s tension between managers and staff, between managers and their bosses.

Basically, there are plenty of opportunities for people to get frustrated, to get angry and more often than not, they do become angry, voice up and complain a little.

But when it comes to famous food, it’s a different story altogether.

Have you ever gone to a place known for it’s ‘famous’ food, a dish that more than 1 person has told you is superb? Well I have and I’m sure you have as well.

For me, it was a certain type of fish head dish and it was in Klang. The chef was well known for his style of cooking and for this dish in particular. He was training his chef’s how to cook the fish head and the many other dishes they had on offer

And because this was his new restaurant, with new chefs, it took much much longer than most people would ever wait for.

You could see the people at my own table and the tables around me getting more and more frustrated, more and more irritated.

One after another they’d ask the manager ‘what’s taking so long?’ or ‘where’s my food?’ and the manager would just keep repeating, so sorry, new chefs…

After 45 minutes, the food finally came. And it was great.

It could have been the hunger making the food taste better than it actually was, or it could have really been that good, but the point is that we quickly forgot that we had been waiting 45 minutes and left the restaurant relatively pleased.

Strange huh?

It’s like your boss irritating you for 45 minutes, giving you a hug at the end and you go home happy.

Not likely.

Like I said, Malaysia truly is a unique place.

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Wan tan mee can be rated by its components making up of the soup, the noodle, char siew and wantan. In the early days wan tan mee does not have curry soup, it was either the dry or soup version. Also, the prawn dumpling or sui kow, roasted meats, mushroom and stewed chicken feet, stew beef, stewed pork ribs, dried curry chicken, prawn wantan and many other add-ons found these days are later years’ additions.

These days a good wan tan mee could only be found at street stalls, usually manned by an old couple who have plied the trade for 40-50 years or the second generation of the family. The ones at food courts run by foreign workers I will avoid.

A good soup should be clear and smell strongly of ikan bilis and dried flounder fish meat. The soup will be deliciously sweet. Ikan bilis are of several grades and stalls usually use a cheaper quality which is big and have a flaky silvery skin. To avoid the flaking ikan bilis skin and have a clear soup, the ikan bilis has to be put into a cloth bag and tied at one end. So, if you see a blackish bloated bag floating in the soup, be assured that it is ikan bilis soup you are getting. Some stalls use pork bones and the soup can be easily recognized as it is milky white in colour. I prefer the clear soup. If neither of this is used then beware – it is monosodium glutamate that they are using. This you can observe when they spoon into the soup soya sauce laden with the msg. For ikan bilis soup no further flavoring is needed.

Wan tan noodle in Kuala Lumpur these days are not made by the noodle seller but at some small supplier factories. In smaller towns where demand cannot sustain a noodle supplier, the wan tan noodle seller makes his own. The noodles are available in various grades dependent on the quantity of eggs used. The more eggs are in the noodle, hence more expensive, the springier it will be. This grade, in Cantonese, “chin tan meen” meaning only eggs ( used in the ) noodle. Springy noodles with thinner strands are the better noodles. Generally, the thinner noodles you see are the noodles that are springy. Only established stalls have this grade of noodles.

Char siew or barbecue pork is usually dyed red but there are those marinated with thick black soya sauce. I much prefer the latter as it is probably healthier without the chemical dye. Good char siew should not be made with lean meat but instead has substantial fat. Its called half fat and thin, literally translating from Cantonese “poon fei sau”. Besides being moist, the oiliness from the fat gives the meat its juicy texture. If you are afraid of the fatty meat you are not eating a good char siew. The meat is usually marinated with salt, sugar and five spice powder besides the colorant which will come from either the thick black sauce or the red dye.

In Malaysia the Muslim market is a big one and food court uses chicken meat for the halal version of char siew. The lean chicken meat is not so tasty. The seasonings used I suspect is different.

Nowadays many stalls fry cook their char siew in a wok. This is a short cut and the end product is not roasted meat which the char siew is. Such char siew is usually not moist and taste more like woody fibre. The best char siew is roasted in an oil drum with both ends removed and over a strong kerosene fire. This char siew comes in the long strips when roasted. Parts of the strips will have burnt ends called in Cantonese, char siew tow meaning char siew head. Some connoisseurs asked for a separate plate of these burnt char siew as the bitter burnt taste can be delicious, ignoring health advice that burnt meat can be carcinogenic.

The wantan skin does not require any special ingredient except flour. A thick skin will slow cooking and taste of too much of flour. The minced pork used should have some fatty bits as just lean meat does not taste good. Machine mincing the meat is not as good as chopping it manually. The former method gives you a paste whilst the other method let you taste the pork better with its unevenness and fatty bits. Many good stalls use the dried flounder fish meat as an ingredient in the wan tan. The fish meat which comes dried is roasted over a low fire and than grounded roughly. However, these days they can buy them ground and in a tin.

Boiling wantan requires hot boiling water so that it is quickly cooked. Slow cooking melts and soften the skin and the wantan does not look and taste freshly made. Some operators when they are busy ignore changing the boiling water and accumulated flour from cooking much noodles and wantan make the water slimy and thick. This will also form a film and mask the wantan’s taste. Those who pre-cook their wantan makes them soggy and unattractive to eat.

Sometimes you get deep fried wantan. I believe they originated from excess wantan from a previous day that could still be sold by deep frying them. Only the freshly fried ones taste nice. This item has found its way in hotels as items in tim sum, starters in a banquet and buffet line.

The sui kow, a bigger version of the wantan with more ingredients and considered a family member of wantan noodle. I love the delicious prawn in big chunks found in it. Other ingredients include bits of water chest nut for its crunchiness and thinly sliced black fungus for its crunchiness and rubbery texture. Chopped spring onion and chopped carrot are also included. There is a version of sui kow without prawns for those who do not eat prawns because of cholesterol fear.

The oil used to mix the noodles should preferably be pork lard as it is more fragrant than other oils. Using pork lard only requires some soya and thick black sauce. There is no need for oyster sauce. Some use a mixture of oyster sauce, soya sauce, sometimes gravy from char siew and msg in the gravy spooned in after mixing with the black sauce. I do not like the latter mixture.

Sawi or mustard leaf vegetable in its full length not cut into shorter pieces is the traditional greens added to the noodle. Some use baby kai lan but this is at the more pricy places. A very important accompaniment is green pickled chillies. Freshly made chillies is revealed by its crunchiness and the clear vinegar water in which it is kept in. Popular stalls where the turnover is high prepares their pickled chillies daily.

Chuah Soon Guan

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Gong Xi Fa Chai! Happy Chinese New Year!

It’s that time of the year again, that last working day before a long Chinese New Year break… So before everyone heads off to eat Yee Sang, gamble and collect ang paus, we at Feedmelah.com would like to wish all our readers a very happy CNY and Gong Xi Fa Chai!

During long holidays, people usually don’t use the Internet much, ourselves included… so although we will try our best to put up posts, we may be too busy eating and eating and eating, and gambling, drinking eating and gambling as well as other combinations… haha..

So I leave you with a question before we all head off to balik kampung…

What do you love about Chinese New Year the most?

Leave your answers in the comments section. I’ll put the first one…

[Photo from Flickr: Laurence & Annie]

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A food blog, especially here in Malaysia, usually means an online demonstration on just how much one or more people can eat over a given period of time. Not only does it involve constant eating, it also involves figuring out where to eat and what to eat as multiple posts about the same food/ restaurant is avoided as much as possible.

A food blog involves a personal critique of the restaurant that the food blogger (or flogger for short) is currently eating at, accompanied by carefully taken photography of the food in question. This encourages floggers to start buying better and better cameras, so as to be able to capture the ‘taste’ of the food through the ‘look’ from the picture.

Even for myself, I knew I needed something a bit better than my old film based camera to take decent photos, coupled with the fact that with film, you can’t review and delete and retake as required. Hence taking the plunge and getting myself a nice DSLR (Nikon D80).

Further still, food photography for a food blog requires the flogger to learn the skills (through self study or trial and error) of macro photography, lighting, composition etc.

About the personal critique, some floggers can be no holds barred when it comes to describing the food they eat. A dry chicken chop can be described as ‘tasted like old cloth’ and a slightly salty dish can be described as ‘tasted like I was sucking on the ocean’.

Whereas others take a more critical approach to the dish with comments like ‘it could have used the sour note of a lime, rather than a lemon’ or ‘a white cream sauce would have been much better with this type of fish’. Which type are you? (Are you wearing boxing gloves? Or a chef’s hat?)

A food blog can also be a constant drain on the wallet and a constant addition to the flab on the stomach, by eating too much too often, too expensive too often or a combination of both. The solution can be found by blogging about street food (for the wallet) and going to the gym (for the gut) although both can be hard to stick to all the time.

A food blog is all things food, from eating out to maybe even a recipe or two here and there, but what lies beneath the surface (or sometimes on top) is the uncanny love of a good meal out, usually with friends and family.

Especially here in Malaysia, where both are a plenty. So keep on eating! [Photos from Flickr by: altemark's, gimmie_shoes, azure_elixir]

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All I can think of is roast turkey… [Picture - Flickr: Hoomant]

Here at Feedmelah.com, we’ve been asking ourselves, what actually IS a Christmas dinner? What types of food do you usually serve to family and friends during Christmas parties?

We know that in Malaysia, if you tell someone to come to a pot luck dinner, regardless of the ocassion, there will always be somebody who brings satay, KFC, pizza… but that’s not Christmas food.

So we ask everyone out there, what dishes do you consider suitable for a Christmas dinner? Here’s some of what we came up with.

Roast Turkey
Chicken Pie
Mince Pies
Lasagna
Cesar’s Salad
Eggnog
Yule Log Cake

Any other suggestions? Let us know below.

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