Tastebud : Let's Malatang

16 September 2025

Today, we tried Sichuan street food - mala tang. The restaurant combined the two words in its name. It got me confused until I checked the website. Ma = numbing. La = spicy. Tang = soup. Together, the words mean hot spicy soup. I was trying to avoid Sichuan food due to their numbing pepper but this concept is new to me, at least in Stockholm. We have similar food stalls in Malaysia that have this concept too.

I entered into the restaurant and I liked the interior. It gives a street vibe with all the street signs and lighted signs, in this case, Chinese characters, and lanterns. 

There are many ingredients to select from and fill in a large bowl. It is similar to a buffet or a hotpot. Once done, I give my bowl to the cashier and get my bowl weighed. It costs SEK36,90 per hectogram (100 grams). I pay and choose my choice of soup. Since it is my first time, I chose sichuan spicy as that is the signature soup base of the restaurant. A few minutes later, my bowl of ingredients is cooked and is now transferred to another large bowl where I can enjoy with an apron to avoid soup splashes. I like that! Well-thought!

There is also a counter to mix your own sauce. Similar to Happy Lamb Hotpot and Asahi Fondue & Grill. 

Paid SEK158,67 for the first bowl. Yes, I took a second bowl to share with my friend where we chose spicy wok and had it with rice.

The bowl reminded me of a washbasin. A washcloth and hot water to wash one's face. I could say that this type of washbasin is common in Chinese household.

I was coughing frequently as I ate up my bowl. The sichuan pepper irritated my thoat. 

Next bowl - we shared a spicy wok base that came with a small bowl of rice - SEK128,46.

For dessert, we shared a bowl of jelly. SEK45. The jelly has raisin and peanut toppings. 

I enjoyed my experience here and I would not mind coming here again and try a different soup base. 

Self-pick potatoes (3rd time)

13 September 2025

It's that lovely time of the year again to do my favourite activity - to pick potatoes! I have done this activity 2 times (2023 and 2024), so this is the third time. The price has increased from SEK13 to SEK15 per kg for the first 100kg and SEK8 to SEK9 for 100 kg and above. This year, we picked 32kg waxy (fast) and 46kg starchy (mjölig) potatoes = 78kg! Now, all the potatoes are in the basement, cold and dark. Hopefully, they will last us to winter. I just checked our local grocery (Willy's - an affordable grocery store) website and the price for loose waxy potato costs SEK18,90 per kg and starchy costs SEK17,90 per kg. So, it looks like we had a good price for our self-pick potatoes!

The weather was perfect too - sunny!

A tractor goes around the field to pull up the potato plants so all we had to do was pick the potatoes from the ground. We remove the damaged and green potatoes for the farmer by putting them in the provided pails and empty the pails in the provided baskets that are put around the potato field.

Here is me crossing over the potato field from the waxy potato field to the starchy potato field. There were deep furrow lines made by the tractor so there were lots of high hops between each furrow line. It was fun because the soil is soft.

Weighed the waxy potatoes first. Last year, we filled up a sack with potatoes to the brim of the sack and it was too heavy to lift the sack up the trailer that transports the potatoes to the giant weighing scale. So, we filled the sack to a 2/3 of the sack and it was easier to carry the sack. 

Both waxy and starchy potatoes on the scale! Starchy potatoes in the red sack. Waxy potatoes in the yellow sack.