nothing in particular

Artisan Bread Course - Lesson 4 (13/09/09)

2009-12-25T10:25:00.008+08:00

1 week before lesson 4, we had to start feeding our own levain.
Day 1: Sticky and stiff.

Day 2: I woke up with a shock to see the levain overflowed its own container and it STINKS TOTALLY! Spent a good 15mins clearing up the mess at 7am..crap~ anyhow, I brought the container to my office as the levain had to be fed every 12 hourly.

This is how it looks at the end of Day 3 (after I fed it): It stinks less but it still stinks ~_~

Day 4: It smells much better already, none of the decaying smell exists.

Day 7: The night before lesson 4, there's activity going on =D I will have my own levain to make my bread tmr.

Some of the observations on the smell and the schedule for feeding my levain.
Day 1: Nothing much.
Day 2: Foul smelling, decaying. Lots of activity.
Day 3: Something is still rotting. Lots of activity.
Day 4: Yogurt like smell. Not much activity.
Day 5: Same as Day 4.
Day 6: Sourish. Lots of activity
Day 7: More sour than Day 6. Lots of activity

Before lesson 4 started, we saw several people had levains that looked different from the others. It turned out that some people thought that the mixture was rotting on Day 2/3 and threw it away. Therefore, they went through the process from Day 1 to Day 3 again and again, thinking that something must be wrong...

"How can the levain smell like rotting crap?" Well, the truth is it really did. And all we had in our mind was to just continue feeding it as per instructions haha~

So what did we do right? K and I concluded it could have been due to what we did:
1. Washing the container with detergent before using it
2. Using oxygenated water on Day 1/2 (as we didn't have dechlorinated water)
3. Wash our hands with dettol liquid soap before feeding the levain each time.

In the end, K gave part of his Alkie (the pet name for his levain) to 2 other class members before the start of Lesson 4, so that they have some levain to work with.

Today's breads to be made:
1. Pain Au Levain
2. Flaxseed Rye Bread
3. Ciabatta

We started off with the Pain Au Levain, the recipe is really simple with wheat flour, bread flour, water, levain, yeast and salt. Yeast is used as we do not have 3hours to proof this bread in class.
Each of student is expected to knead the ingredients together with their own levain to produce this bread.

I can truely call this YY's bread. It is made from my levain (hmm~ the dead cells from my hands went into the levain) and I kneaded it on my own. I wonder why my dough looks kind of small compared to others >_<

K's dough.

After 1 hour of proofing, YAY they grew which means the levain worked!

Meanwhile, another group started making the Flax Seed Rye bread.

Dividing time.

Rounded

And placed in the couche.

Our group of 4 unanimously decided to volunteer for the making of the Ciabatta bread. The words that Judy said about handling Ciabatta dough kept ringing in my ears, "You got to treat it like a baby..." No pics on that cos we were so busy. Finally, the dough was shaped and placed onto the canvas for proofing.

Right before baking, Hafizh told us to use our fingers to make the holes in the Ciabatta dough. This is what gives us the irregular air pockets in Ciabatta.

Freshly baked Ciabattas. This bread is the 2nd reason why K is excited about this Artisan Bread Course =D

Hafizh told us that the irregular pockets are obvious only when you slice a Ciabatta lengthwise across.

Cross sectional look for Ciabatta.

Our hand knead bread, . Look at the height difference, seems like my levain isn't very strong.

My bread smells nutty and sweet and had a sourish after taste. Whereas K's bread smell kinda sourish and tasted like corn flakes. Haha~ the wonders of using your own levain, you produce individual unique breads.

Flaxseed bread, finally done.

Saying goodbye to my levain, sorry you got to go cos I won't be able to feed you everyday and only use you less than once a month.

As for K, his alkie is still surviving as of 31st Dec 2009.

Artisan Bread Course 3rd Lesson (6th Sep)

2009-11-09T21:10:00.009+08:00

Today's lesson is going to be exciting because we are going to make our own levain. This is the main reason why K is excited about this Artisan Bread Course actually.

The breads to be made for today's lesson:
- Brioche (High butter content bread which requires freezing of dough else it will melt in our hands)
- Pain de Paysant (Simple bread for peasants)
- Multigrain

We arrived at Creative Culinaire pretty early and saw this huge pile of packed flours which is to be distributed to us to cultivate our own levain.

The tart mould and raspberries are part of the brioche bread we are going to make later.

The brioche dough was made on the day before by Hafizh(instructor) because we will not have enough time if we were to do this bread during the short 5~6hours lesson.

As the result, Hafizh took out the frozen brioche dough he made and the rest of us divided and shaped it.

This design is a traditional shape called Brioche à tête.

Next, we spread some hazelnut cream over the brioche dough. This bread is to be put into the paper holder and proof/baked as a loaf.

By right, this loaf is supposed to be twirled nicely but apparently my dough was too long and as the result it looks squashed ~_~ but K's look much nicer.

The remaining dough was rounded then filled with custard + raspberries. Before baking, a heart shaped sweet cookie dough was placed on top of the bun.

The end result:
Gosh our tete is fugly -_-"

Close up on the custard raspberry brioche bun.

The inside: Seems like the raspberry melted into the custard. And its really sour >_<"

The hazelnut brioche loaf.
There were leftovers for this loaf, why? I wonder who didn't take her/his share.

Earlier on right before baking, everyone placed a piece of paper with their names onto the brioche loaf. Well, it seems like the bread grew in the oven and many people couldn't find their loaf so K convinced a few aunties to JUST TAKE DON'T CARE SO MUCH but some were still desperately trying to find their name amongst the 34 loaves of brioche bread.

However, our papers were visible so here's our ugly brioche loaf. Don't be deceived by its look..
This bread is DELICIOUS!

At the same time, the class was also doing the multi grain dough. We learnt something new today regarding sticking of seeds onto the dough.

Place a moist cloth on the table, roll your dough on it. Then roll the moist part of the dough into the grains and the grains will STICK ONTO your bread.

Previously, when K wanted to do this sesame seeds bread stick and the sesame seeds simply fell off during the course of baking, now we know why.

Whole load of multigrain bread and it was really fragrant.

Pain de Paysant was in the making too.

To make this pattern, first use the roller to make a cross. Make sure its pressed down real hard until a clear cross is seen. Then gather the dough and place it into the couche to proof before baking.

Bottom 2 pics: Top view(left) and bottom view (right)

Cross Section of the Pain de Paysant.

Closeup for the multigrain bread.

The cross section for multigrain bread. I am not a lover of grains but this bread smells really great with all the seeds/grains.

Ahh~ Finally, the Hazelnut Cream Brioche Loaf.

Soft, fluffy, sweet, crunchy and buttery NOM NOM~ If I do not know about how much fat is inside this dough, I will probably eat one whole loaf on my own.

Towards the end of the lesson, Hafizh went through on how to grow our own levains before next week's lesson so that everyone can make a bread using their own culture. And you know what this means? Everybody's bread is gonna unique cos everyone's culture is going to taste/smell different.

Our very own levains and for the next 7 days we must feed it conscientiously every 12hourly. Let's hope we succeeed *fingers crossed*

Artisan Bread Course 2nd Lesson (30th August)

2009-10-07T00:32:00.002+08:00

The 2nd lesson was kind of hands-off cos the breads to be made were mixed by 2 groups while the rest watched on. It was until the divide and shaping stage when we got to touch the dough.

The 3 breads to be made:
- Baguette using poolish method
- Baguette using sponge method
- Cranberry Raisin Bread

The cranberry raisin dough was divided according to the number of students in the class and everyone had a hand in shaping the breads.

After the baguette was divided and shaped, its time to put them into the linen cloth so that they can maintain their shape for the final proofing stage.

Raisin breads resting in the couches.

Another variation for the baguette..interesting pattern.

By the 2nd lesson, we were starting to appreciate breads with bold bake(darker color) as they have better tasting crust.

After the baguettes have cooled, Hafizh took out a pack of baguette from Brand X, sliced it across and passed it around. He told us to smell it. Everyone took a sniff and had this EWWW look on their face because the bread smelled like overfried french fries! This is what we have been buying commercially OMG~

Hafizh started comparing the high hydration baguettes we make VS the commercial products that do not even smell/look like a baguette.

The crumb for our high hydration baguette. After tasting baguettes made from both poolish and sponge method, we actually found that the sponge method baguette tasted better O_O

Whole load of Cranberry and Raisins bread..

Looks good~

Cross sectional view.

OMG WASABI TEI HAS CHANGED HANDS!

2009-09-22T23:45:00.000+08:00

;_; one by one my favourite food stalls are closing, disappearing EVERY YEAR!
What's this???!!!

First it was Geylang(Oppo UOB) Ipoh Horfun, then it was Damen Lou's Swee Kee..
then bad happenings didn't stop...it went on to 作记

And now WASABI TEI...NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!!!!

Nothing tastes good after I returned from Japan, now even my last few edible food joints are closing..
*MAO*

Artisan Bread Course Lesson 1 (23/08/09)

2009-08-27T23:39:00.010+08:00

It's the first time Creative Culinaire is organising an Artisan Bread Course class, our first time at Artisan Breads and coincidentally its the instructor's first hands-on lesson too =D

Here's Hafizh explaining/ demonstrating on the usage of this huge production size mixer.
In this lesson, it was less hands on than we expected as the ingredients were mixed in large quantities like, for the whole class. Back in bread course 1/2, every pair in the class have to mix their own dough. But the main reason for mixing/dividing the dough together, is to ensure that everyone's dough can get into oven together. However, we still get the chance to shape the dough.

Lesson 1:
- Raisin Challah (made on our own)
- Challah (made on class scale)
- Baguette
- Pain de Campagne
- Boules

Soaking the raisins in warm water before use. This is for the Raisin Challah.

Making the cold butter plyable by using the rolling pin to beat it.

After adding the butter, mix till window pane appears.

Mixing the raisins in by hand.

Now let the dough rest for 30mins.

After 30mins, the dough is folded to give the dough more strength, distribute the yeast food and distribute the heat. The ideas taught to us in this lesson is kind of new and there were many ??? on everyones' mind.

After another 30mins, its time to divide the dough into the portions we want to work with. Hafizh showed us how we can make life easier for ourselves by putting the weighing scale, main dough, extra dough on different sides of the working space.

After dividing all the dough into equal portions, pre-shape the dough and let them rest seam up.

One of the patterns taught in class, this is made by the instructor =D

K's 6 plait challah, he got kind of confused along the way(which to plait next) LOL~

Meanwhile, the boules were being shaped and left to proof on the linen cloth called couche.

The finished product with sugar rocks (sprinkled before baking) for the raisin challah(above).
That's the 6 plait challah, nicely browned.

The crumb of the challah. The sugar rocks make this bread even more tasty :p

Whole load of baguettes. See the leaf like pattern made using the scissors.

The boules are baked till "black". Actually to us, this standard is chao ta but for artisan breads, it actually brings more flavour for the crust.

The inside of the baguette.

The class ended at about 8pm(after cleaning up and cooling the breads) and many students left at 7pm lol~ so each person had quite alot of bread to bring back >_<'

Post editing in progress

2009-08-21T10:55:00.002+08:00

Back from Japan for 5 days, I am not digesting Singapore food for weird reasons?!
Tokyo is a pretty interesting city, however I would say that Taiwan is more FUN than Tokyo. Probably due to the fact that I prefer the sea, nature, wild flowers..going to a park to admire flowers is not my cup of tea.

Have been busy with post editing for the Japan trip pics, hopefully I can get them done by end of the week. Guess I will be looking out for more options before deciding where to host my travel review as blogspot upload function is really really troublesome.

It's pretty bad that I haven got mood to work. Not really due to holiday mood I would say, but its the dread of doing these stuff. I hope I will be doing something else within the next 1 year *GOSH*

Right now, I should look forward to my artisan bread course starting this Sunday.

Gaijins in Japan!

2009-08-01T00:26:00.003+08:00

K and I are going to Japan on NWA from 1st Aug 09 to 15th Aug 09.
He says he isn't really excited cos he doesn't know what to expect.
Silly boy -.-'

We will leave my place at 3am which is 2.5hours from now..I am sleepy zzz~
My wish to that we can visit 90% if not all of the places we planned in the itinerary.

Visiting:
- Tokyo(mainly)
- Kawagoe
- Hakone
- Shonan
- Enoshima
- Kamakura(maybe)
- And of course 2 outlet stores are planned for =D

Festivals during the trip:
- Bon Dance (4th Aug to 7th Aug) at Asakusa
- Enoshima Fireworks (4th Aug) at Enoshima

*Pray for fair weather*

Have been zhng-ing my stuffs lately

2009-07-26T00:06:00.002+08:00

Just a short update..

Bought this BNWT ripcurl bikini from ebay, hmm pretty good except that the straps are wrongly positioned..or should I say design fault?

Anyway, to correct this problem(of zaogeng)..I cut a pair of hooks off some bra strap and sewn them onto what I deemed as the correct position a.k.a more towards the centre. Tried adding new paddings to it, but this bandeu design does not have wired cups so paddings will only make the top"leave" my chest.
Zzz so no paddings and there's going to a Changi Airport when I wear this. But well luckily I have my tankini which is safer for water sports, so this bikini will be solely for tanning purposes.

Been DIY-ing some victorian style pearl necklace. I am using swarovski pearls, toggle clasp and a victorian cameo(bought from Far East Plaza). It looks kind of boring now cos I need some black colors on it..maybe black lace or some black beads(I can grab some from a necklace that I dun wear anymore)

I love DIY, maybe I should get a sewing machine soon.

My IA student is H1N1 positive...

2009-07-13T18:24:00.003+08:00

Sometimes I don't understand people.

I don't know why my IA student is in the office despite having a sore throat, cough and flu symptoms. The next thing I know is that he has got a fever of 38.3 degrees and he's IN OFFICE! So our OPS I/C came along with a N95 mask on her face, and one mask for the student and escorted him out of the office building. This took place on Thurs.

Fast forward to Sunday night, I smsed the student and asked how is he and he said no one called him and he's feeling ok. He told me that the clinic said IF NO ONE CALLED HIM, it means HE'S NEGATIVE for H1N1. Ok fine, so he came back to office on Monday, thinking he's gonna be fine.

Fuck! Then came this phonecall from the clinic saying that his test results are out and he's POSITIVE for H1N1. *@&#*@^#*&@^#@&*^#&@%^!@$!%$@!%$
So now, the people who had first level of contact with him are all under home quarantine for 7 days. Well done.

But you know what's the most stupid thing here? The h1n1 test takes 2 days to show if one is h1n1 positive and my student was only given 1 day mc(for friday) which means he's not covered for monday. I don't blame him for coming to work, if you were a student whose lifeline depended on your IA grades, you wouldn't want to mess up too.

So the 5 of us were gathered and given N95 masks, disinfected with a spray before we got escorted out of the office building. I am amazed that the cab stopped and took us back home *touched*

For now, home quarantine for 7 days..

I want to go for my Japan trip and I think I hate IA students.

Koose birthday 26th June 09

2009-07-04T22:20:00.004+08:00

K and I took leave on 26th June(friday) to celebrate his birthday.
To make things more special, I booked a facial appointment in the couple room @ bioskin.

It's K's first time having facial.
In the couple room at 1030am *yawn*

That's K towards the end of the facial treatment. hehe~

Since it was too late to go to Wasabi Tei, we decided to drop by the Hokkaido Fair at Isetan for lunch.

K had a $34 bento set with sashimi and hokkaido crab.

My very crabby bento set, $24.

Freshness and quality wise it was so~so cos the fish is not that fresh but well its a good price for variety.

We bought this mochi thinking it was sweet but its salty ricecake with soy bean flour and red bean inside, INTERESTING~

And more add-on(s) , male shisamo lol~ and also Hokke(not in pic) cos we were too stuffed.

Pre-booked Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen tickets! Well, we smuggled the hokke into the cinema, but ate it after the movie XDD

Dinner was Pontian Wanton Noodles at the Taka Basement food fair which tasted fantastic compared to their normal branches YUMYUM~

Happy 32nd bird day to K. ~_~

Puggy has reappeared but...

2009-06-26T00:36:00.010+08:00

We were told by the feeder auntie that a kitten of the same color as Crookie recently appeared(about 10th June 09) near Crookie's area. For the next few days, we combed the area but we couldn't see/hear any kitten noises. One evening, we finally hear a kitten mewing in the drain and out it came..could this be puggy who went missing at 3 weeks old???

Well, the drain area where it reappeared coincides with the account of one of the grannies who said the kids took the kitten to block 6. So we are convinced by the size, color, age, gender that this should be Puggy!

For the next two days, we couldn't find him again but he reappeared one fine morning at Block 1 where bbmm, zzm and llm roam.

15th June 09:
This is LLM sniffing Puggy.

The coat color looks just like zzm, who is Puggy's mother's -> BBMM's sibling.
Puggy is a hungry kitty who went "melllllllllllllmelllllllll" while jumping.

He's so thin :'( I wonder who took him away when he was 3weeks old and why is he back on the streets again.

Sad look in Puggy's eyes.

16th June 09:
We came on another morning and saw Puggy playing with 2 malay boys. They said that they will take care of him..We hope so.

Here's Puggy after a full meal, lying on his back. Just like Crookie, bbmm, zzm, llm..puggy has the trademark white mouth too, that's what makes them even cuter! >_<
I saw the malay boys cradled Puggy so I prompted K to try it as well.
Puggy was not really in the mood to be cradled but he stayed put.

K said he felt like a father and his baby is a kitten LOL~
Suddenly, K hummed some random mewing song and Puggy looks up stunned with his hands straight down.

17th June 09:
Didn't manage to see Puggy till the boys brought him down during dinner time. Puggy is quite attached to them already, I hope they will love Puggy well.

Precious moment for bbmm and Puggy, reunion of the mother and son. It seems like bbmm does sort of recall Puggy's scent cos bbmm didn't hiss at Puggy and even licked his ear tip after the meal.

After the meal, Puggy was poking his nose around the area and bbmm looked from a distance with this blur look on her face. Could she be recalling about her babies?

However, this is the last time we saw Puggy and the boys didn't come down to play lately too ='( , let's hope Puggy is fine.

I ate a scorpion

2009-06-15T00:12:00.003+08:00

Today's K's granny's birthday dinner..
Time to wear my new dress from last last week's bargains, thought it would be too sweet but seems like putting on a pink ball rubberband is still ok LOL~

K's having a stomach upset, so I camwhored abit >_>''' And this kitty pose from Asian Poses, something new to me.

At the restaurant. We were supposed to visit the kitties, but thought we would be too late so we skipped that. Behind us, are some previous herbs and dried whole lizard, deer penis..etc etc -_-'

Inspired by "Night at Museum 2"...I am thinking.

As dinner was nearing the end, the waitress came over and asked if we wanted to try scorpions. Being adventurous, we ordered one each round the table. Soon the scorpions came and hmm~ K's scorpion looks FAT N JUICY ewwww~~

This is mine. It has this weird taste when I chewed the body and the tail together cos entire scorpion came off from the fried whatever, in the first bite. The weird taste was like woody..or maybe musky??

K's juicy one. He enjoyed the tail particularly.

Finally we can say, we tried scorpions before =D

Support for an entrepreneur from EDMW (06/06/09)

2009-06-14T23:56:00.005+08:00

This is actually a long overdue visit we were supposed to make to Amulet's stall located at Bukit Batok industrial area. I wanted to visit her stall as I admired her entrepreneurial spirit, being a hawker is really tedious and requires tonnes of hardwork.

We actually rushed down today morning as we heard she's closing her stall and partly due to the fact that some EDMWers will be going down, so we had more information from the forum thread before this.

We alighted at the wrong stop -.-' so we walked for 15mins before finally finding this place >=0
Some said putting her baby's pic on the signboard was unprofessional, but I don't think so cos we are talking about an easily identifiable stall name/logo here.

We ordered the ngoh hiang, beehoon+noodle+kway tiao, fried egg and veggie. Tasted not bad overall...the ngoh hiang, egg and kway tiao was especially good.

Some edmwers were already eating when we arrived and since we didn't post our attendance in the thread, we decided to remain anonymous. Then some of them suspected us to be edmwers, so later on the organiser decided to call us to the main table. We joined them for awhile, but had no common topic so we left. Well, actually both of us were lurkers and what can we chat about since we are meeting for the first time, there's this silent awkwardness unlike the rest who are more talkative.

Btw, edmw is one of the most happening forums with the fastest updates and beats the 154th media anytime.

Some fucker abused my kitties

2009-06-12T23:52:00.003+08:00

This is pretty sick..for the past 1 week something happened to LLM, BBMM, ZZM
First it started with llm and bbmm both down with limping front left leg, except llm had a more serious injury than bbmm.

Then when llm was about to recover after 4 days, she was down with another injury. This time its her hind left paw, it seems like a thorn is stuck in her pad or she got stung cos the paw swelled for the next few days =(

Today:
We registered a vet appointment for her, but she seems fine today. Maybe we should continue to monitor instead of putting her through the trauma of going to the vet in the carrier >_>'

Wed morning:
Back to zzm, we visited all 3 of them on wednesday morning. Fed them and we sat down at the Senior Citizens' Corner. Zzm came over and hopped up the stone chair.

At the same time, there was this half naked Uncle with a tattoo on his arm, sitting on the stone bench. He raised his fist as if wanting to hit zzm. K got scared and signalled me to leave.
As we had something on, we had to leave asap else there is no time to make the chocs and cake for my friend.

After we left, we headed to the nearby kopitiam for breakfast and that was where we saw the other feeder, Auntie Ping. She told us that her friend who feeds the kitties in the morning noticed this man who is sitting downstairs half naked, stared at her when she fed the cats. Another thing was that, her friend would fill up the waterbowls and find them emptied later. She suspected that the half naked man emptied the waterbowl. Upon hearing that, we nodded in agreement because the man was around this morning too and was hostile to zzm.

Thursday morning:
We saw the kitties and noticed that zzm had the same injury, left front limping leg as llm and bbmm. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!

So who abused my poor kitties ='(

Self rewarding week & Da Vinci Exhibition

2009-06-01T00:07:00.008+08:00

Have been burdened by this certification exam for sometime..its finally over!
And its time to reward myself, however these are short term gratification as guilt follows shortly after -_-''

I have some long overdue shopping which was done during this week..ouch~ my wallet hurts.
Think the total came up to 2K+ ~_~
- Upgrade facial package
- Clothes ( 2 levis, 2 working tops, 2 working pants, 2 dresses, 1 casual top for fridays)
- Baking course for artisan breads

And there's still shoes and bags that I need to replace ._.''

I spent my entire Saturday shopping at Far East Plaza and Taka and it was rewarding. The main reason I like shopping is because I love to look for bargains. Well, as a rule of the thumb, I only buy things that are worth what they are. Too costly? Next please.

I am happy with my purchases especially the Levis Jeans. Not quite due to the brand, but because they had the 2 pairs for $99 and there was boot cut designs! Boot cut designs are rare these days, don't know what's nice about skinnys though. Esprit working tops are decent enough at $30 each. 2 dresses at $12.90 each, it says no trying so I kept my fingers crossed...luckily it fit me just right.

We went to the Science Centre, Singapore on Sunday using Corporate Passes. Yay for free entry.

$2 off Da Vinci Exhibition tickets -> $13. Well, its worth your every cent.

The famous drawing, all about the golden ratio.

We spent about 3 hours in the Da Vinci Exhibition and we couldn't get enough lol~
I can't help but shake my head, regarding the horse that Da Vinci spent 16 years on. He could have achieved so much more *sigh*

And unfortunately, the Science Centre closes at about 6pm else we could have stayed longer.

One best quote from Da Vinci:
Marriage is like putting your hands in a bag of snakes hoping to find an eel.

Someone abandoned a box of 3 kittens (24/05/09)

2009-05-31T00:40:00.005+08:00

These 3 kittens were found abandoned on 24th May 2009 morning, under woodlands block 173 void deck.
They were in a card board box sleeping quietly when K saw them, they look about 1-2 weeks old.

K was holding a pack of raw fish, so he returned home first before going down to look at these cute kittens. They were unable to walk, yet someone placed a small cup of milk outside the box..LOL? I arrived in a taxi shortly and took these pics and placed them on EDMW...in hope that some kind soul will bring them home asap as they need mum's milk/kittens' formula.

Why didn't we buy the kitten formula for them? Well, K has a point..he says if we buy the formula, we can only feed them for TODAY.
What about tomorrow?
And the day after?
Are we prolonging their time in a cruel sense instead?

They remind me of bearbear and puggy ='(

*Kiss*

So cute...but their owner doesn't want them.
When we returned at night (after some postings and bumping of thread, no one adopted the kittens though) and the kittens were not there anymore.

I hope a kind soul took them in, or someone sent them to meet their maker.

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Concert

2009-05-25T23:52:00.004+08:00

We bought the tickets wayyyy back in March and now its finally 23rd May =D
K's a FF music fan, but for me its my first time listening to FF music.

2nd level circle seats.

The 1st half..I didn't manage to capture pictures for the 2nd half programme.

Sneaky pic before start of concert -_-''
The circle seats were really good and there was this guy that kept screaming "Noubo &@!@#$ San whenever he caught a glimpse of the main composer for FF songs, Nobuo Uematsu (great composer).

The conductor, Arnie Roth was fantastic too. But I have to say that our local vocalist, didn't quite make the mark. Was it unfair to compare her against Izumi Masuda @ Distant Worlds, Tokyo? I don't know, but the youtube video gave me more "feel" compared to the live orchestra performance at The Esplanade.

My Favourite for Singapore's Distant Worlds concert:
1. Distant Worlds
2. To Zanarkand
3. One Winged Angel

ZZM and BBMM are now officially part of the Tipped Ear Clan

2009-05-16T23:18:00.003+08:00

Zzm was missing during dining time since last friday, I thought to myself maybe she went to give birth.

Fast forward to Monday, I was shaking my can of dried food expecting bbmm and llm to appear but zzm came meowing instead. I looked and wondered if she looked slimmer => gave birth. Meanwhile I squatted down to pour out the dried food and had a shock of my life! zzm is tipped ear!!! OMG?!

Later in the noon, I went to look for the auntie and it turned out that she had brought for ZZM for neutering and well the vet said 'OK' so they proceeded O_O
Poor zzm and her unborn kittens ='( Zzm was so whiny and kept meowing when I looked at her.

Tuesday morning, I signalled her to come up my lap. She made a 180 turn on my lap and rested her head on lap. When I took out my camera, she made a few adjustments.

Resting her hands on my wrist. Zzm has a habit of resting her paw paw on my arms when she's on my lap.

Still resting her paws on my arm and her head resting on her paws. Meow~

She needs some tender loving care =( I gave her some *Pat Pat* and she seems to be comforted by it. Later on, she also rested her head on my chest and she's such a cutie >_<
While I chatted with the auntie, she told me she sent zzm back and took bbmm away for neutering as well. OH MY~~~ now my new year wishes have been fulfiled =D

Here's bbmm back on the 3rd day. I found her later in the evening sleeping on her back, she's really whiny but she had her normal huge appetite =) One thing is..bbmm seems to have slimmed considerably in the 3 days, K commented bbmm's head shrunk or maybe should I say her cheeks? Lol~

Seems like the wound still hurts alot, so bbmm rested in this pose for the next 5mins
Unglam -.-'' I noticed there's some red flesh..is that her raw flesh? I hope the vet had sewn bbmm's tummy well, I am worried. And I wanna complain..they cut too much of her ears!

Swee's wedding @ Banyan Tree,Bintan

2009-05-03T21:56:00.014+08:00

I promised Swee that I will make him a box of chocolates as wedding gift (well part of the wedding gift) and here we are making it on the day just before the wedding.

After 5hours, the chocolates are finally out of their mould and gosh the heart shaped cups from Daiso fitted the chocolates nicely...except that the chocolates are having their butts facing up now >_>'''

The box I made earlier for storing these chocolates. For the DIY process, click here.
Coincidentally, the wedding theme was white and gold too!

Packed my accessories for tomorrow's trip and stayed over at K's place but I didn't manage to fall sleep until 6am+ O_O

Met up with the group at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and this a hell lot of docs to fill in.

Finally on the ferry. We were sitting on the 2nd deck and it was quite shaky all the way so I couldn't sleep.

K's sleeping soundly URGH~

Nvm~ I shall camwhore with myself.

Finally after a ferry, cab, buggy ride..we have arrived at the Tree Top area for the wedding ceremony.

Beautiful place with the "cliff" right beside the resort.

Unfortunately it was really humid, soon I felt like a post it pad.
But there was free flow of fruit juices and the staffs were really helpful, this reduced our discomfort. And to add on, they were nice enough to keep the chocolates for me in their fridge =D

At around 1pm, the main leads finally appeared! We were invited to sit down and witness the union of Sweeyang and Joyce.

"I hereby pronounce you, Husband and Wife" =D

One of the wedding favours, a fan. The other was the potpourri.

Wedding lunch at the Treetop Restaurant.

Menu for today.

Nice flowers and cutlery set.

The wedding lunch started with the bread being served, there were 3 different kinds.
One was like a baguette, another like those fried butterfly dough(with sesame seeds) and another was like a normal bread bun.

Olive herb butter and cheese to go with the bread. Everyone had more than 1 helping of the bread.

What seem like eternity... 20mins later, the appetiser was served, Parfait Salmon Tuna Tartar with creme Fraiche, Caviar with Gazpacho dressing. The name of this appetiser is really long and mouthful but in short, it was raw tuna with raw salmon(meaning of tartar = raw) with some cream, caviar and sour sauce. But I didn't like it at all(i had one bite though) as I don't take raw fish. K loves this appetiser alot.

Orders were taken for the main course with choices of chicken or fish and they took 40mins to arrive O_O By then, I was like quite full -_-'''

Blue Eyed Cod with Wasabi Mash(potato) and Confit Lemon Prawn dressing.
This dish was a hit with everyone! YUMMY!! Wasabi in mash potato was great cos it made it more refreshing and the lemon dressing had bits of lime leaves in it, which made it even more fragrant. Needless to say, the fish was cooked to perfection as well.

The Corn Fed Chicken with Gratin Potato Rosti, with mushroom ragout and tomato jam paled in comparison when compared to the other choice of main course. Other than tasting kind of chinese style, the shiitake mushrooms were "sandy" due to the spores =(

30mins later, dessert arrived and we were almost too full to care. Meanwhile Swee started giving a small speech regarding the trials of organising this wedding and why he chose bintan.

Dessert: Bitter chocolate mousse with Vanilla ice cream and caramel.

I hope this wedding cake was a complimentary gesture from Banyan Tree, cos it was really lousy...hope Swee didn't have to pay for such crap.

There was complimentary tea/coffee but no one could stomach anymore water so all the guests retreated to Swee's villa. Swee said he booked the largest villa available to accomodate all guests but its freaking expensive at US$900/night.

Overview of the villa, consists of a court yard, swimming pool/tanning area, 2 bedrooms.

Finally managed to get the groom to open his wedding gift. I took a deep breath and finally saw that the chocolates were still intact. *PHEW* The chocolates sure took a long long journey to arrive in his hands.

Swee said that he enjoyed the chocolates =D , boy am I glad to hear this.

A few hours later, the whole bunch of us left for the ferry terminal and I got to say that travelling to and fro bintan on the same day is freaking tiring, I was half dead the next day X_X

But this is definitely an unique and memorable experience =)

Cosy Dinner @ Tavolo(17/04/09)

2009-04-20T23:45:00.008+08:00

We wanted to drop by Tavolo since many weeks ago but only had the chance today.
The menu was simple so we chose a set meal $80 and 1 crab linguine..well, french fare is never cheap.

Set meal for dinner:
Appetiser: Foie Gras Cold & Hot (need to add $10 to the cost of set meal)
Main: Braised Veal Cheek
Main: Mushroom Risotto
Dessert: Dessert of the day
Drink: Tea/Coffee

Extra main ordered: Crab Meat Linguine

Overall cosy country style ambience at Tavolo.
The waiter was attentive and asked if we wanted to split every dish from the set meal and linguine into 2 portions and that was what we actually wanted!

Hmm raw tuna with cheese and olive bits. I guess this is part of the appetiser.

All pictures depict HALF the portion of the full size dish.
This appetiser - Cold Hot Foie Gras blew us away. FANTASTIC, RICH stuff!
From left to right: grilled pineapple, cold foie gras, crusty fragrant bread, hot foie gras, banana banana compote.

The black dots were the sauce, which I suspected was concentrated plum sauce.
Cold foie gras with bread was fantastic, it was really rich and fragrant that we rubbed the foie gras against the roof of our mouths using our tongue. The pineapple was sweet and gave us a refreshing feel. In comparison, the hot foie gras was not that spectacular.
Banana compote was quite good, it gave us a change of flavours in between the rich foie gras.

To our surprise, half the portion for each of us was quite filling. In fact, I started feeling something in my tummy when I finished the appetiser.

Next up, mushroom risotto. It's quite filling despite the small portions..this is weird.
Pretty creamy and full of mushroom flavours but I think K's latest attempt on the risotto tastes better.

The crab linguine we ordered in case portions were small. It was quite nice with lots of crab meat but alas we were feeling quite full by now!

And there's the braised veal cheek which was really big despite being halved -_-'
Flavourful and soft.

Ordered cappuccino, it came out of the coffee maker with cinnamon powder and really yummy cookies that complimented the coffee real well. It was thoughtful of them to prepare 2 portions of cookies =D

And dessert..*we were trying to find space for it* was a vanilla ice cream and chocolate cream with passion fruit puree and raspberry, almond biscuit, chocolate stick for additional tastes.

The whole experience came up to about $120+ which was quite ok, considering the portions that were given. I do think that we should have shared the set meal instead cos we were extremely bloated by the end of it.

Excellent service and pretty good food, but the dessert menu needs some serious additions though.

Kazu Sumi Yaki @ Cuppage Plaza (16/04/09)

2009-04-20T00:34:00.009+08:00

We decided to try this restaurant because of Kevin's recommendation on their dessert called Snow Drop. It was a very busy night for the restaurant, we waited for about 10mins before we had the menu in our hands. And gosh..the menu was hard to read and order -_-'''

Sumiyaki Rock (Coffee and Shochu) for K and Oolong tea for me.

Mix Kinoko(mixed mushroom) not bad but the amount was miserly @ $5

Shishito (Grilled mini green peppers), not bad in terms of taste but $3 for this stick of veggie is...

We decided that we need something to fill us up =( garlic rice, $6.

Some other yakitori items we ordered includes chicken balls, beef with cheese, pork rolled with basil, pork with avocado and duck stick.

Ika Geso(grilled squid tentacles), $3 and beef balls.
Of all these items, beef balls were the best. The rest were mediocre, really.

The reason why we came here, snow drop @ $8.50. Looks pretty artistic with all those sugar art.

There's so much different kinds of tastes going on that we thought it might be overly complicated. Caramelised custard, green tea ice cream, blueberry sauce, mochi skin, banana flavours(from somewhere), almond biscuit. -__-

The bill came up to near $60. Seriously, I have no idea what's good on the menu but the rest of the items are seriously expensive. I would still recommend Yakitori Uma for yakitori cravings.

Centre PS @ Guan Chuan Street

2009-04-11T00:54:00.008+08:00

I was googling on Guan Chuan Street and Moh Guan Terrace in images when I chanced upon Centre Ps, which means Centre Pieces. I was attracted by the reviews on their Macarons and decided to make our way here on a rainy night.

Moh Guan Terrace is a very special place because of the U shaped balconys ahhh~ pretty houses. You can find out more at Tiong Bahru Estate Blog =D

Centre Ps is located in this quiet neighbourhood filled with pre-war flats, it totally stands out with the lollipop colors so you can't possibly miss this. *I love bright colors*

We stepped into the shop and was greeted by the friendly owner, Steven. There are 2 chairs and 1 table in the shop. As we were there near closing hours, I wondered if they bring out tables and chairs for al fresco dining experience during earlier timings.

I particularly love this Macaron lollipop stand @_@

Some media coverage on Steven Ong, o.O 20years of experience.

We ordered one Citrusphere, $7. It consists of whipped meringue on the outside. So its kind of foam like with citrus flavour.

The inside is some Hazelnut praline and mini chocolate balls.

And two macarons at $2 each. The chef is famed for his macarons and that makes us excited hee~ We chose 2 flavours, Caramel with Fleur De Sel (Brown color) and Passion Banana(Yellow and Orange color). The chef then advised us to allow the macarons to return to room temperature before eating *well the freezer was set at 3 degrees celcius*

While we were having our meringue, the chef brought out 2 sample sized "Martel"(Les Verrines Collection) from his kitchen, citing that they were about to close and this is for us. Awww how nice of him!

The white cream had cognac inside, but it was not too overwhelming and a non drinker like me actually found it pretty nice especially when eaten with the chocolate cream and coco powder. The chocolate was in a semi soft state so everything pretty much compliment each other. There was also some bits of crunchy "crik crok", ok we have no idea what that is..either nuts or biscuits.

Finally, Passion Banana Macaron. One bit into the macaron, I tasted Banana flavouring and then some sourness from the Passion fruit flavouring in the buttercream filling. What macaron shell??? I didn't have to chew any, it melted. Ok now we both know, Canelé and Bakerzin are selling crap macarons.

Caramel and Fleur De Sel Macaron. One bite into it, K tasted the saltiness from the grains of Fleur De Sel then caramel buttercream. This combination was really good.

It was so good that K was sold for $0.00

Oh~ an award for their Macarons..they certainly deserved the award.
What satisfying desserts we had...YUMMY~

Note that Centre Ps does not open on Sundays and closes at 9pm from Mon to Saturday.

Yakitori Uma @ Orchard Plaza (09/04/09)

2009-04-11T00:12:00.008+08:00

We are here at a "new" Japanese Restaurant, Yakitori Uma. We peered in through the glass and saw that there were only 2 tables of customers on a Thursday. Actually I was afraid that we will 'tio tok' at this restaurant located at a secluded spot.

There's alcoholic K with his Sapporo Draft Beer. He says its fantastic.

A comprehensive list which introduces their dipping sauces.

It didn't take us too long to place our orders.
Food: 1 set meal, 1 kamo stick, 1 Japanese stew.
Drinks: 1 Calpis and 1 Sapporo Draft.
Ordering a set seems the best choice as we get to try abit of everything.

Soon the sauces arrived.
Yellow colored sauce: Karashi (Mustard)
Brown colored sauce: Yakitori Tare

Set C 1st dish: Vegetable stick. Crunchy veggies with Japanese mayonnaise is great.

Up next: Kamo stick. We rarely see yakitori duck dishes, so we ordered this item.
Succulent duck meat with yakitori spices and abit of salt...SLURP!

And Japanese stew came, which consists of cabbage and meat cooked in sukiyaki sauce. Hmm quite an average dish although it was quite tasty.

Set C 2nd dish: Deep fry items.
Lotus root, onion and quali egg. This is to be eaten with the Kya Tare Sauce.
One thing to note was that the batter was thin and crispy *slurp*, meaning it coated the food nicely before it was fried.

Set C 3rd dish: Tender chicken stick and tender chicken with onion stick. Surprisingly, two sticks came for these 2 items, just nice :D The chicken meat was really tender and full of BBQ goodness.

Set C 4th item: Rice and Szechuan Veggie(Za Sai).
These two items were already a good combi for a meal.

Set C 5th dish: Pork neck and pork belly. Pretty good except that it was fatty -.-'

Set C 6th dish: Ginko nuts and mushroom. Quite interesting except that the ginko nuts had salt ~_~ which wasn't quite matching.

It doesn't look like we had alot of food but we were surprisingly full.
The total bill came up to around $60 bucks which wasn't too expensive for yakitori. We soon found out why..cos there was NO GST! Wee~ GST makes a great difference -.-
K says he will be back.

While we were waiting for the bill, we discovered that they actually had versioning tracking for their menus. Ver 2.0~

Ver 3.0 o.O'

Lotsa new experiments today..(05/04/09)

2009-04-05T16:55:00.015+08:00

Extra: 杏仁瓦片

Today's Dinner Menu
Sides: Baby Portobello
Soup of the day: Vegetable Minestrone
Main Course: Plain Risotto with Braised Lamb Shank
Dessert: Mango and apple in yogurt

I was supposed to do the almond biscuits last week but we totally forgotten about it -.-'
Receipe was taken from here.
Simple ingredients: Egg whites, cake flour, icing sugar/ sugar powder, melted butter.

Top left: Mix melted butter + icing sugar

Top right: After above is mixed and cooled, mix in flour and egg white. Lesson learnt here is flour should be sifted and added separately into the first mixture else there will be flour clumps -.-'

Bottom left: After everything except almond flakes is mixed in.
Bottom right: Impt! Toast almond flakes in pan till browned then mix into mixture gently.

Tips:

Remember to separate each almond flake so that they don't overlap each other.
Remember to bake till brown else the non-browned portions are going to taste chewy and elastic.
Use non stick baking paper else you will have to eat paper biscuits.

Baking time 10mins at 160 degrees celcius.
Indeed using non stick baking paper is great, the biscuits slided off the paper easily =D

Close-up. I think the recipe lacks vanilla essence as the biscuits taste sweet and eggy..but not really "fragrant".

At the same time while I was making the biscuits, K was starting on the soup broth. So I was doing my biscuits, watching the oven and taking pictures of my stuffs and his. @.@''

Ingredients in veggie broth: Celery, carrots, leeks, onions, garlic.
First sweat the garlic and onion till slight brown, then add in all the other veggies and stir fry.
Add in water and boil till..you are satisfied with the taste?

After 2hours of boiling...

We bought the lamb shank from MMMM at about $6.50 which was a steal considering a fresh one would cost twice as much. Whilst the broth was boiling, K started removing the fats from his lamb shank and coated it with flour and seasoned it with salt and pepper. He says this process serves to seal in the juices for the lamb shank.

Top left: Seared the sides of the lamb shank.

Top right: Sweat garlic and onion.

Bottom left: Add in diced tomato and bay leaf. Do note that salt may have been added to the processed tomatos, taste before deciding whether to add salt.

Bottom right: Add abit of red wine, some veggie broth and black peppercorns.
Simmer for awhile before sending lamb shank into oven. The broth was added as there was not enough liquid.

Cooking time approx. 3hrs at 180 degrees celcius. The whole pan went into the oven covered with foil(top). And this was how the lamb shank looked after 1 hour, it's important to "turn" the lamb shank over every 1hr or so. Oh and we removed the bay leaf before it got overpowering.

After 2nd hour of cooking.

Now its time to prepare for tonight's soup: Vegetable Minestrone.
Ingredients include: Onion, tomato, celery, carrot.
As usual, sweat the onions then stir fry the veggies.

Add in water and tomato paste. The picture below was how it looks when we added half a can of tomato paste. We added one whole can of tomato paste later on cos the colour seriously doesn't look right. On hindsight, I think we could have added one piece of chilli in as well.

After we were done with the soup, its time to make the risotto using the veggie broth we made earlier on. It is K's second attempt on risotto, this time he had some good tips from the internet.

Tips:

Cook risotto rice grains with onions till grains looks 'glassy'
Make sure the wine/broth is heated to boiling stage before adding into the rice. Food science has it that ingredients of similar temperature mix easily together.
Ensure wine is fully absorbed before adding stock to the risotto.
Do not over-stir risotto.
The last ladle of broth to be added to the risotto is the hardest estimate, too much of it results in a watery dish while too little of it ends up taste dry. Do note that cheese and butter thickens the risotto.

Top left: Swatting onions with risotto rice grains
Top right: Heated wine goes into risotto.
Bottom left: Cheese and butter added to semi final product, the risotto instantly thickens.
Bottom right: End product looking yellow and creamy.

Finally dinner is ready at 8pm+. The braised lamb shank with tomatos *slurp* It's really fantastic with fall-off-the-bone meat and the tomatos absorbed the essence of the lamb juices.

This time the risotto tasted so much better. It's now softer and it has this nice creamy, fragrance to it. We cooked 3 handful of rice grains and it was actually enough for 2 persons o.O

Portobello mushrooms with parsley and garlic, to be eaten with olive oil + balsamic vinegar dip.
This is done by me *heh*

Dessert at about 1 hour later: Mango cubes + apple slices + plain yogurt. Yum Yum~

I would give the dinner an overall of 8/10 =) *K says I haven rated his cooking for sometime*
It would have been higher if the soup was more sour or rather something was lacking in the soup taste..maybe MSG? LOL~

3 malay kids took puggy away and he's NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! WHERE'S KARMA???!!!

2009-04-04T10:43:00.004+08:00

Just got news that 3 malay kids took Puggy away 2 days ago and the main feeder can't find him either. This has nothing to do with race, I have seen kids from other races behaving in the same unruly, barbaric manner.

I don't know what's fucking wrong with these bastards!

I saw them chased and terrorised the cats. One young girl even took the lead and led other kids to HUNT the cats from their hiding place.

I had first hand experience of being thrown plastic bottle in my face when a kid walked past and saw me feeding/playing with a cat. His fucking parent didn't even stop him or lecture him..she just walked past as if nothing happened.

I hope karma strikes you fucking bastards zillion times worse! *******

Don't tell me that its just a cat, an animal..FUCK U! Imagine the animal as your child/loved one before you make such a comment.

Being a human doesn't make you more superior than an animal.

I don't know whether to blame myself for luring BBMM away to the food area or the kids for being such bastards or the parents for their god damn failure in inculcating moral values in their young!

A last minute cake order..the birth of Banana Chocolate Goodness

2009-03-28T23:42:00.006+08:00

At 8.30am in the morning, YH turned over and said,"Jiejie, you today can help me make a cake for my friend's sister birthday?" What a last minute order and she only got the sms at like 3am lol~

Flipped through my recipes and I guess that Chocolate + Banana should be quite well received.
Left home at 11am+ to get the stuffs and I still think Cold Storage has the best baking corner compared to Shop N Save and NTUC.

I had no time to think of decorations and SKP doesn't sell "Happy Birthday" signs... RAWR!
Started making the order at 1pm++. We are using Vanhouten's Chocolate Buttons for the entire cake, this is expensive at $5.20/pkt.

Clockwise top left: Melting butter with chocolate chips, sifted flour, cut baking paper for baking tin, whisking 3 eggs. The entire process was quite fast and the cake was in the oven within the next 10-15 mins.

The bottom of the cake. I feel that the baking temperature is rather high, or maybe baking time should be shortened to 30mins.

After the cake has started to cool, its time to make the ganache.

K cutting the banana for me. He says his hands looks sexy ~_~

Lesson learnt: Place banana slices from centre first.
Clockwise from top left: Placing banana slices on the 2nd layer of cake; putting the last layer of cake but have not trimmed the sides yet; finally managed to cover the whole cake in chocolate ganache; final product with white chocolate shavings.

What should we name this snow capped banana chocolatey goodness (chocolate banana cake with white chocolate shavings actually -.-') ?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update:

YH's friend reverted with good feedback on the cake and said her sister may want to get a cake for her daughter's birthday =D

BBMM's kitten(s) are 1 month old today

2009-03-27T23:11:00.004+08:00

Bear bear and Puggy have been missing since Tuesday. But we found puggy alone in the drain today with BBMM nearby..where's bear bear?

I hope the someone who took bear bear away from mama will treat it well :'(

Puggy in the drain..too bad we missed the shot of Puggy sleeping on BBMM's tummy >_<

Puggy is fierce..it hissed at us but no sound came out O.o

At around 5pm+, K saw Puggy and BBMM sleeping on their backs with Puggy sleeping on BBMM's tummy *awwwww* but he had no camera -.-'''

In the evening after BBMM came out for food, we saw Puggy sleeping on his back. EXPOSED!

K caught the shot of Puggy yawning hehehe~

Happy 1 month to BearBear and Puggy =(o.o)=

Menya Shinchan revisited

2009-03-27T00:40:00.003+08:00

Revisited Menya Shinchan many times but today we had something different.

Spicy pork ramen. This item comes with thin noodles and the soup has a thick layer of chilli oil ~_~ so don't slurp these noodles, else you will choke on the chilli oil => X_x

K's extra hot double tsukemen. Noodles comes with lime, egg, char siew and bamboo shoots.
It's spicy item and I guess HOT stands for high temperature too.

One of the dipping sauce, light bonito flavour. YUM~

This is EXTRA HOT, so much so that it was boiling for 1-2mins after it arrived at the table.
The extra hot dipping sauce is a much heavier flavour of bonito compared to the other.

Both of them gives a fantastic mix to the noodles and lime gives it a refreshing taste.

Kittens are missing =(

2009-03-26T23:52:00.003+08:00

We came on Tuesday and realised that the kittens are missing from the altar :'(

In the evening, we spotted BBMM lurking near the Mama Shop..but we couldn't see anything under the drink machines and BBMM behaves as if she has no kittens -_-

Karma befallen me as I laughed at K some months ago when Black Male sprayed on him. IT'S MY TURN NOW! And guess what..I took a whiff of the tissue that I used to wipe Black Male's ermmm...pre-cum? Can't think of a better word -_______________-

I was exasperated cos I can't and won't do anything to him, so I whipped out my camera and took a picture of him...he seems to be saying,"What? I didn't do anything..I was sleeping all this while" RAWR~

LLMis not as jealous this week and she loves scratch scratch from K. Aww~ she's such a darling, K's favourite meow meow.

And ZZM started coming back during dinner timing this week, we have not seen her since she shifted to the carpark 2 weeks ago =D

SGSB SFIV Tournament

2009-03-24T00:18:00.005+08:00

Melon and S-Unit organised a Street Fighter 4 tournament on PS3 at Melon's place.
It's one of the largest turnout following Bacon Explosion outing with 12 participants and 1 spectator =D

At 3.30pm, everyone drew a lot for their opponent and the tournament starts with Ericonz(Ken) facing Beast(El Fuerte).

The match continues on..its Ratix0(feilong) VS UncleG(Zangief).

Finally both sides produced 6 semi finalists. Meanwhile, Ratix0 became the winner of the losers -_-' through losers match.

One of the matches: Kenneth(balrog) VS UncleG(Zangief)

The prize from Beast: Kino vouchers $30.

Final match result: Melon emerged as the winner~ The host takes the prize.

In between the matches we had some EPIC moments like Double K.O between CJ and S-Unit and the crowd directing Divinesage to use Zangief as its a new char to him.

Till now, everyone is still high from all the violent slamming and fighting lol~
Playing the SF IV is bad for me..its gonna get me real violent cos I love fast flying/slamming chars..but KOF still seems more fun to me.

Kitties Update

2009-03-23T00:39:00.002+08:00

The kittens are supposed to be 3 weeks old by end of this week but we have no pics on them cos their mama, BBMM shifted them under the praying altar =((( But we saw bear bear(whiter kitten) walking inside so we presume they are well and alive.

Here's BBMM with K stroking her.

LLM got very jealous and we noticed her jealous streak more and more often. Like going "MEOW!" then swat BBMM with her paws or passing by BBMM then hissing at her and swatting her. The latest one that K saw was LLM running from behind while BBMM is sitting down, then using her(LLM) paws to swat the back of BBMM's head..what a vengeful kitty!

Well, the "bad blood" did not start without a reason either, cos the other day BBMM chased LLM around angrily as LLM tried to paw her kittens from one side of the altar. Naughty LLM -.-'

Jealous LLM as below:

They kept a safe distance while doing the same activity, bathing.

LLM on her pride rock.

Over the weekend, we visited Crookie as well cos we left early on Friday and she didn't get her dinner. She's so cute and cuddly.

勿洛南（牛记）虾面 (Niu Ji Prawn Noodles)

2009-03-22T23:55:00.003+08:00

I have eaten at Niu Ji for MANY MANY times since I used to work nearby..I brought K once to try their prawn mee too.

Today we are here so that K's sister and parents can try it too. Somehow, Channel 8 recommended this stall like a few days ago and THE QUEUE IS FREAKING LONG NOW!

I always like the "shelling frenzy" on the left side of the pic...this old granny and moustache guy shelling the prawns. They still maintain cheap prices, $2.50 for dry and $2 for soup (regular portions) Let's start timing the queue..its now 12:09 pm

We are finally at the FAN AREA! It's now 12:42pm -_-

Finally, the prawn mee is in front of me at 1:08 pm
OMG~ we queued 1 whole hour for it.

This is the dry version. Nice ketchup with chilli combi, remember to ask them NOT TO ADD those fried lard bits.

The soup version. Regular portion is enough! Do not order the big portion if you are above 23 years old, I bet your metabolism rate has decreased if you are not that young -__-'''

To be honest, I would rate the noodles at 6.5/10 today..they used to be MY FAV PRAWN MEE IN SINGAPORE at 8.5/10! ='(
So~ return on a week day to try their normal standards =D

Meanwhile, you can grab some Orange Banana or Orange Pineapple juice from Cameron Highland Fruit Stall that's opposite before joining the queue. This stall makes fantastic juices(the above recommended flavours) that gives Orange Julius a run for their money.

Marina Barrage on a super rainy day ~_~

2009-03-22T00:29:00.007+08:00

I took a half day leave to attend K's dept gathering at Marina Barrage so we left office at 12noon and took the train to Marina Bay MRT Station.

Camwhoring in the train cos its virtually empty~ There's K with no. 1 expression.

Marina South is "in ruins" with all the IR works in progress. Here lies the piece of land where the steamboat BBQ buffet restaurants used to be =(

We started eating at this eatery as buffet lunch was catered for. Suddenly..a scene from "Pirates of the Carribean" started at the windows nearby >_>''' and the afternoon activity was supposed to be KITE FLYING! Oh noes..

Waves..water~

Some viewing platform that I haven stepped on yet.

In the exhibition hall, K with no.1 expression.

I am blue da ber di da ber dia~

He's blue

3P actions transforms Singapore? Over the years, we learnt from experts =D

Some really really crap ePostCard application in the exhibition area. There's K sending the postcard to himself *he's that MONKEY in the postcard*

Why is it crap? Basically, you need to press 'enter' on the machine while standing at the green background area*to take a pic*, its about 1.5m away -.-'' Next, they literally paste your stupid photo over a chosen background and send it to your email(entered).

ABSOLUTELY NO FRILLS!

Huge downpour turned into slight drizzle..but its too late for any group activities so we decided to leave.

Marina Barrage.

We had nothing to do -.-'' so we went to Far East Plaza for shopping. I saw a few stuffs that I liked but they were not worth the price tag on them. At 5pm, we decided we should go queue for Wasabi Tei. Oh wow, at 5.15pm the first 16 seats are filled *phew*

Inside Wasabi Tei finally after half hour of queueing, 5.37pm.

I ordered the Beef Set while K ordered the Sashimi dish, $25 for all these thickly sliced fresh sashimi. There's scallop, salmon, salmon belly, tuna, snapper and swordfish which is really value for money and K says,"YUM YUM!".

Kitties update~

2009-03-14T23:37:00.004+08:00

There is BBMM sitting in the flowerpot and the kittens were kneading her for milk.

Short video..unfortunately, BBMM covered the kittens from the camera zzzzz~

9th March 09: 12 days old. Pugss

11th March 09: 14 days old. Sleepy kittens~

11th March 09: We caught a glimpse of their eyes..they have opened their eyes awww!
This whiter kitten really looks like a bear. <(o.-)> It was lying on its back while its darker fur sibling is sleeping beside it.

Awww too cute!

Mew~

13th March 09: 16 days old kittens. Finally caught both of their faces on camera! =D

Update on Crookie and LLM:
Both of them returned on 11th March 09 and I managed to see LLM and Crookie on 12th.
They are tipped ear cats now ~_~ finally.
They are still in some pain from the operation and Crookie hurt her nose.

But yes no more harassment from Black Male anymore!

Puncak @ Far East Plaza #05-94

2009-03-14T22:42:00.004+08:00

Been visiting Puncak for dinner for many times YUMMY~
This is one of the cheapest dining places in Orchard Road, a great place if you don't mind smelling like food after that.

Puncak @ #05-94 is a halal eatery that serves stuffs like ze char dishes.

Lime with rose syrup $1.20.

K's dinner: 姜葱牛肉饭 $5.50

My dinner: Thai BeeHoon (Beef) $5
This beehoon is soooooooooooo yummy!
Consists of lemon grass, lime leaves, lime juice(squeeze on your own) , fried onions, eggs, veggie and beehoon soaked in fantastic sauce. Oh not forgetting, beef =D

And loads and loads of chilli padi..at least 2 whole chillis inside *fans tongue*

All prices are nett and we noticed almost every table ordered fried wanton, we should try this soon *slurp*

Something scary happened...

2009-03-10T00:00:00.004+08:00

Last friday, zaizai was missing during dinner hours. When we went back on Sunday to look for her specially, she didn't appear either. This morning, only buibin and luilui appeared for breakfast..where's my zaizai?

No choice, we had to start work so we went over the overhead bridge and tapped our cards to enter the secure swirvel gate. Suddenly we heard some meows and decided to turn back. Out came zaizai from the bushes under the overhead bridge @_@ how did she get here? What we feared most happened *cos they followed us up the bridge before*

Was she waiting for us???? I took out the dried food can and shaked it while she followed us back to her original place.

There's K in front, with zaizai rubbing her scent all over the place with her facial scent glands -_-

From the way she marked the railing/steps on the bridge, I knew she would be back. Indeed she reappeared during lunch as well and we led her back. And after work too O_O WTF?

We led her back and I could see she was reluctant to follow =(

Update: I just received news that ks heard a cat wailing outside office when he left office. It must be zaizai T_T

I am so sad.

Other updates:
Crookie and luilui have been sent for neutering by kopitiam auntie YAY~!

Buibin is officially a mama now!

2009-03-08T00:43:00.009+08:00

Buibin is 10mths old. She's just like a kitten but she's to be a mama now =(
She's supposed to be tipped ear BUT she escaped from the cage during the previous attempt to neuter the kitties.

About 1 month ago, we started noticing her pink swollen nipples and she got rounder and rounder. We read up on cat pregnancy and it says that the meows of a cat going into labour is odd, so much so you will know once you hear it.

The video below was taken on 27th Feb 09 morning hours during breakfast feeding. Buibin ate her share and started meowing oddly while going in and out of the drain many times. We guessed that the "nest" maybe in the drain. What a place to give birth in >_> Subsequently, she didn't appear for dinner..we presumed she must be busy giving birth.

We went back on a28th Feb 09, Saturday morning to make sure Buibin and her newborns are fine. I walked around for awhile before Buibin ran out from the bush and mewed loudly. This is buibin begging for one more pack of cat food. We were really glad to see her fine and lively...with a little saggy stomach.

On the following monday, we heard some whimperings from the tables and chairs left at one corner of the Senior Citizens' Corner. We peered in and saw them..2 kittens >_<' 3rd March 09: 3 days old kittens.
4th March 09: 4 days old.

5th March 09: 5 days old. One is lighter color like BBMM and another is darker in color.

5th March 09, evening hours: Finally caught a glimpse of the dark color kitten's face. So cute!

6th March 09: 6 days old kittens, close up on darker kitten's face. They remind me of pugs lol~

8th March 09: 8 days old kittens.
We saw them move and opened their eyes today =D And....they have tails >_< K was so YG (yok gan) that he stroked one of the kitten's head -.-

Hope those idiotic kids won't find them in their flower pot T_T

Bacon Explosion SGSB outing!

2009-03-04T00:02:00.019+08:00

We ended quite late yesterday and had sore ankles from standing too much.
K had it worse cos he was a *WS*..no la he went for IPT and got injured from running too much.

I took a cab over to K's house to help him out with the remaining items at 8am+.
Turns out that the bread has been baked already cos he woke up at 6am to "thaw" it out (back to room temperature before baking).

At 6am+, K said he couldn't find anywhere to thaw the bread except in the oven, he dumped it there and stumbled back to bed -_-'

Time to wrap the bacon around the sausage meat that was marinated yesterday. This is done in accordance to the webby, interweaving the bacon strips. We feared that the bacon strips will be too thin and thus break during cooking, cos afterall they were not thickly sliced ones >_>''

K pressing down the sausage meat. There's 900 grams of pork + mutton here! Meanwhile me and K's dad were wondering if the "bacon sheet" can hold all these meat.

Now add all those bacon and BBQ sauce we made yesterday ! Oh and pan fried chilli powder for that extra smoky flavour.

It's a wonder how everything got wrapped in o.O'

Using a hickory smoke bag, that costs around $10 for one time usage ONLY ('_')

Placed the bacon explosion into the oven. This is supposed to take around 2.5 hours.

This is the main star for today ~_~... gosh we were nervous cos it looks like the bag might burst @_@'' *instructions says the bag will rise during cooking*

Time for making potato salad..luckily we pared and boiled the potatoes yesterday night.
Paprika, miracle whip, egg yolks.

Rest of the eggs and parsley, mix well.
I see the "Naked Chef" in the background XDDDDDddd *oh noes I am gonna get killed for posting this comment*

And the final touch up for Philly Cheese Football, rolling pecan nuts on it.

Pesto dip for baguette. Ingredients includes Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, garlic, oilve oil and basil leaves.

Another dip for the homemade bread, walnut dip. Lemon juice, olive oil and walnuts of course.

K said that frying chicken wings twice will result in crispier wings hmmm~

Second round of frying is done and the buffalo wings sauce which consists of cayene pepper sauce(ready made from MarketPlace @ $2.10) , chilli powder, butter and honey.

Meanwhile the smoking bag kept growing and growing..finally it hit the top heating element and K shifted it down to the lower shelf. Finally 2.5hours passed and THE MOMENT has arrived..
Time to cut the smoking bag open..*there goes $10 goes the toilet bowl*

Quick check on the internal temperature, about 80+ degrees OK WE ARE DONE!

Presenting the BACON EXPLOSION~

The essence gathering from the smoking bag >_>''

Bake the bacon explosion for another 10mins or so to make it crisp before applying a few more layers of BBQ sauce.

Extra dish from Beast's relative, home made ngoh hiang YUMMY~

More guests have arrived and its time to start laying the tables and cutting the cooled baguette.
Seems like high hydration sponge gave the baguette nice holes and ultra soft texture.

In pic below:
Bacon Explosion
Butterhead + toasted garlic + bacon bits
Potato Salad
Chicken Wings

Closeup for yummy ngoh hiang.

Cross section of Bacon Explosion.

Philly Cheese Football. Ok its not exactly a FOOTBALL..

Homemade meat cake from Jolyn *Thumbs up!*
Consists of beef patty, BBQ sauce, mash potato.

Sorry no pics on the event cos I was bushed >_>'''
Everyone was too shy to start eating until Robert started HAHA~

After the meal, DS groups and PS gaming groups begun to form. Glad that everyone enjoyed themselves, it was quite a good turnout of 16pple =)

Later at 4pm+, its about time to bake the caneles as they have rested for about 24hours. However all the forummers have to head home soon and these caneles have to be baked for 1hour plus!

I used half the recipe given and it couldn't fill all the moulds *shrugs* I don't want to eat too much failed products if any.

After 10mins+ at 250degrees which is the MAX temperature for this oven, the caneles started rising. Turn down temperature to 180 degrees once top caramelizes.

After 20mins, cover with aluminium foil and finally after another 40mins..TADA!
We were quite surprised that the caneles turned out dark brown cos it wasn't browned totally when I covered them with foil.

Silicone mould makes removal easy. But the oven heat was uneven at the centre resulting in pale caneles for those in the centre of the mould.

Popped them into the oven for another 10mins+ at 180 degrees.
Now they look like caneles.

On the right is the top, left is the bottom. They look chao ta, don't they?

This canele tastes custardy in the centre, sweet and crispy on the outside. Nice stuff~
By eating only the centre portion, the dessert doesn't taste that nice..so eat everything together.

*We passed some to our colleagues. Some say it tastes like caramel, coffee on the outside*

Cleaning up time. Combination of the oil + essence from baking of bacon strips and baking of bacon explosion itself...see, we saved you from so much oil and fats -_______-'''

Comments:

Most felt that Philly Cheese Football was tad too rich, except for one.
Most chicken wings were not fully cooked, still bloody inside -_-
Bread was soft and good.
Most felt potato salad was great

More to add later...

Cost saving tips:

Frozen stuffs are much cheaper so we went for frozen bacon, minced mutton. MMMM at Novena Square 2 offers quite a large variety.
Thai basil costs much lesser than those found in Cold Storage, we got them from malay spice shop in Woodlands.

Lessons learnt:

Sauces tend to taste better when made and left 24hours. So we should make them early next time.
Planning the cooking schedule in advance is good to ensure things are done systematically and there is enough time/oven space for baking each item.
Place hickory smoke bag on bottom rack instead of middle rack.
Powdered gelatin should add 4times of water instead of 5 for blooming.
K felt that the sausage meat could be more mushy and wings could be more salty.
For butterhead, water should be drained more thoroughly.

Bacon Explosion SGSB outing (Preparation)

2009-03-01T15:22:00.032+08:00

K found a website describing some 5000 calories dish - The Bacon Explosion some weeks ago and posted this on SGSB forum asking, "Who dares to try this?".

Well it turns out that many forummers are interested in trying it and so we decided to organise a lunch outing at K's place..to share the sin *hiaks*

Preparation started about 3weeks ago when we started buying/sourcing for some of the ingredients. Meanwhile, the menu was evolving too.

The hardest thing to find was thickly sliced bacon. When we finally found that MarketPlace was selling it, we were elated but the cost of thickly sliced bacon is about $15.50 =(
More about cost savings later.

Final Menu:

Salad:
Butterhead with garlic,bacon bits and sesame dressing
Potato with egg, parsley, bacon bits and miracle whip

Mains:
Bacon Explosion
Philly Cheese Football
Meat Loaf

Sides:
Old Chang Kee Curry Puff (from other forummer)
Ngoh Hiang(from other forummer)
Self Made Baguette
Buffalo Wings (sauce placed separately)
Desserts:
White Wine Grape Jelly
Matcha Macaron Shell
Red Wine with 7-Up

Started the preparation of sauces and ingredients one day in advance. With the following schedule:

Event (Sat)		Time (H)
Make Sponge		0700-0800
Shopping + lunch		1000
Pork rub		1230
Marinate Sausage		1300
Marinate Wings		1400
Make cheese + bake bacon		1500
Make Wine Jelly		1530
Toast sesame + pine nuts + walnuts		1600
Make BBQ sauce		1700
Wash butterhead		1800
Boil potatoes		1800
Chop pecan		1800
Shape bread		1900-2000
Dinner		2000

Event (Sun)

Time

Take out bread, sausage and BBQ sauce from fridge

0600-0700

Bake bread + wrap explosion

0800

Boil egg

0930

Smoke Explosion

1000

Make salad dressing (Fry garlic slices)

1000

Make pesto sauce

1030

Take out cheese from fridge

1100

Deep fry chick wings

about 1130

Make wings sauce

about 1230

Crisp Explosion

1245

Coat cheese with pecan nuts

1245

Saturday started at 7.30am for K as he started making his sponge for the baguette.
We met at 8am+ to visit BBMM who went into labour yesterday. She's fine with a little saggy stomach and hungry as usual. But the kittens were hidden elsewhere *hopefully*

Went to get the groceries and headed home at about 12.30pm. w00t on time for now that is.
We started making the sauces and seasonings first.

First seasoning to be done: Marination of sausage.
These are the spices(below) that are to be used for the sausage in the Bacon Explosion dish.
K chose to make the sausage on his own after considering the large amounts of fats and salt in commercial sausages. In the end, 50% minced frozen mutton + 50% pork(shoulder butt) mixture makes up the inside of Bacon Explosion dish.

We had trouble finding "fresh" minced mutton and finally found some frozen ones at MMMM @ Novena Square 2. They are cheap and good, $6 for 500grams of mutton =D

Spices recipe from :http://www.lesleycooks.com/sausage/creole.htm

Lotsa stuff to be finely chopped so Slap Chop comes to the rescue! It only rescued those who had the strength to press the top repeatedly for 2mins or so. In short, it didn't help me -.-'

K marinating the sausage mixture. After marination, refrigerate.

Next Item: BBQ Sauce.
This sauce is to be used inside the Bacon Explosion and to be brushed on the outside as well.
Special ingredients were coffee and tomato paste. Never expected these two items to produce such tasty BBQ sauce lol~

After mixing in coffee and tomato paste(left pic), the sauce was simmered over low heat for 30mins(right pic).

One of the sides: Buffalo Wings
Marinating the chicken wings with rosemary, salt, pepper.

Condiments: Pesto sauce for dipping Baguette
The pesto sauce was made using Thai Basil cos it was much much cheaper.50cts for such a big bunch. K says that the most fragrant part of Basil is its flower.

K picked the good leaves and this is about HALF of the big bunch!

After 30mins, the BBQ sauce has been reduced to a thicker form.

Next dish: Philly Cheese Football
This dish was contributed by another forummer who suggested that it compliments Bacon Explosion really well. Prolly in sin -.-'

Coincidentally, this is also the most expensive dish..about $40+.
Sharp cheddar was really hard to find. It took us several trips to different cold storage/market place/ntuc to find it.

Ingredients include: Miracle whip, sharp cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese. That's lots of dairy products.

And one more thing, spring onions! *Slurp*

Miracle whip was something new to us. It turns out its mayonnaise without the eggs.

Mix all the cheesy stuff together.

Use a hand whisk and mix till smooth.

Smooth and wrap the Philly Cheese mixture with glad wrap, chill.

Extra dessert: Caneles

I decided to make caneles using the silicon we just bought some weeks ago. This results in leftover egg whites, this means its time to make macarons as well. K found this canele recipe which states that it works best for silicon moulds so why not try it? But the drawback is that, caneles take about 24hours to rest and 1hour plus of baking time so I guess it will be our post-gathering dessert instead.

Non low fat milk, vanilla seeds, egg/egg yolks to be mixed together first.

Other stuffs to be mixed. Includes vanilla seeds+ milk (boiled), flour, butter, sugar.

Good old trusty hand whisk comes in handy. There's the SPAR mixer but its too much work to wash the container -.-'

Chill mixture for 24hours before baking.

Meanwhile, K started arranging the bacon strips on the rack. These bacon strips are baked in advance to remove oil, fats. Now that's alot of BACON.

Finally done after 10mins+, nicely browned.

That's the amount of OIL and FATS from 12pcs of bacon.

Dessert: White wine grape jelly

I slacked till about 7pm before doing the dessert for tomorrow, white wine grape jelly.
Items needed includes sugar, grapes, white wine, gelatin, lemon juice and soda water.

K managed to ransack his cabinets for 6 more glasses. We are making 16 cups of white wine grape jelly.

Clumsy me have one less thumb to work with due to jacket zip zzz~ so K has to open the cork for me.

Monkey Bay White wine @_@

Everything in, now to the fridge!

Delayed my macaron making till 9pm cos.....K was supposed to mill all the nuts/seeds together.
The stuffs needed are just egg whites, sugar, matcha powder and almond powder.

Matcha powder was really expensive, $2 for 20grams and we already used 4.5grams for 23 pcs of macaron shells >=(

Matcha powder was quite hard to mix cos it was sooo dry. But luckily, the mixture still looks glossy and holds its shape.

Except we have a rainy weather today and the macarons were not drying out..fortunately the aircon in the study room managed to dry the macarons within the next half hour.

The finished products. We used lesser baking time this time round which I thought might be a mistake cos they stuck to the paper like nobody's business zzz~

No pics on baguette making cos its just all white dough. At 11pm, K started shaping the baguette for it to ferment overnight in the fridge.

The fridge is bursting at its seams!

To be continued on SUNDAY to be just in time for the gathering...

Nua-ing for a long long time

2009-02-22T00:29:00.004+08:00

Haven been cooking for a long time, or rather I have been restless these weekends.
I have something to do but I don't feel like doing it.

Anyways, I bought a canele silicon mould today for my canele challenge.
I can only find/afford silicon moulds ($17) cos the freaking copper moulds costs about US$17~ 20 for 1 piece O_O

And we went to Metro at Compass Point to while our time away cos we were supposed to meet my parents to go down to my Uncle's wake. Ooo I got attracted to the Guess Counter and here's my present from K.

Somewhere hidden away @ The Central

2009-02-20T00:06:00.004+08:00

Had dinner with Beng today and he said he will bring me to a secret place hmm~~
We arrived at 5th floor of The Central after dinner.

Right in front of us is this weird metal doors that looks like a elevator.

This secret place has got some basic dress code and doesn't open on Sundays.

Beng then proceeded to press one of the buttons beside the "elevator".

Ahh~ here we are in Helipad. This is the 1st storey, air conditioned seats.

Very dimly lit. There's also a door that leads to some standing tables, where you can chat, drink, stand and enjoy the view of Singapore's night life.

Beng said its so dim that you can do anything at the table and no one sees it *yea right*

Stepping out of the door, we walk up this flight of stairs.

Up up and away! Looked down and saw the top most storey of the multi storey carpark.

2nd storey of Helipad. W00t! Super ambience with natural winds.

I ordered a Shirley Temple and Beng had Helipad's Ice Tea..$9 and $18 nett respectively.

The ambience here is fantastic except that music is lousy. Drinks wise, the quality is ok nothing special. But hey there's 1 for 1 during Happy Hours for beer and selected drinks, not too bad a place to chill out after dinner especially with the cool night winds.

14th Feb 09 Valentine's Day @ Izakaya Tamako

2009-02-15T00:29:00.008+08:00

This year's vday is a low budget production too, we didn't want to go anywhere with vday menus..lest we become carrots.

All set to go for dinner, at a cheap Japanese restaurant with 2nd hand smoke -.-' at 7.30pm
Oops, I forgot to take a pic of K and myself. This year's vday, no pic.

It's our second time here actually, within the same week. This small restaurant is located on the second floor-> directly above Concorde Hotel (old Le Meridien Hotel) food court.

The chef in charge of yakitori items. I am quite particular about hygiene and the chef doesn't give me enough confidence -.-

But let's put that aside..they say "Never see how the food is cooked else you won't want to eat it"
Seaweed in vinegar as free appetiser.

Miso mackerel $5.80

Yakitori set $12, 5 assorted sticks of your choice. In above there's chicken wing, chicken gizzard, pork belly, asparagus and golden mushrooms with pork. Not bad..sprinkled with chicken powder and Japanese spices.

Natto $3.80 , but we were charged $3.50 cos the bill was wrong. Above, nattou with soy sauce and mustard..K's favourite.

I am not a fan of squid BUT THIS IS MY FAV. Squid in mayo, Ikamayo at $5.80.

Ton Teri, which is pork skin and some flesh in sweet soy sauce kindda stuff. I am really glad that all the fats can be removed quite easily. Ton Teri at $5.80.

Charcoal grilled mussells, 5pcs for $12. Very worth eating it according to K.
Bill reflects $40..but we ordered 6 items o.O think we got a free squid or something. ^^'

Ok, to be honest..the food is seriously quite cheap for its quantity/quality.
We had pork curry the other day and it costs $7.80, miso grilled onigiri for $3.80..yum yum~ And there's no 7%, 10% charges here, all prices are nett.

If you are fine with a small dining area that accomodates 10+ people and smoking in aircon restaurant..this could be just the place for you =X

Crookie is so cute

2009-02-05T23:44:00.006+08:00

We found Crookie recently ^^ She now resides at the rubbish collection area >_>
Every evening we would drop by to feed her dinner.

A few weeks ago, Crookie kept meowing for us when we left..it seems like she was unsettled about her new home cos the junk was piling up and she couldn't enter her sleeping quarters.

Just a few days ago, Crookie was trotting after us round a bend, when a guy was taking his Jack Russell for a walk. Right after the bend, Crookie came into eye to eye contact with the dog that was about 1 metre away from her. Her immediate defence was to curl the body upwards and appear larger by fluffing up all her fur.

After the dog left *without any barking*, Crookie came towards us with her tail still fluffed up! She was trembling and unsettled while stepping around the same spot with her fluffy tail. But once Crookie calmed down, her tail became normal again. *cute*

But yesterday, we see a change in her O_O
Some naughty noisy children came by and tried to stomp their feet(they have done that MANY TIMES!) to scare her *while she was standing beside us*

Crookie actually stood her ground and went growling and hissing!
Ok I know those stupid kids won't get frightened off but its really surprising to see Crookie on the offensive side. Coincidentally, K's finger was pointing at Crookie and Crookie hissed at his finger as well -_-'

Suddenly, the black male came along.
And the next thing we knew was, he got paw-ed on the snout by Crookie.*PWNED*
We guessed it was because he intruded her home XDDDdd But still, that black male went in and sprayed his urine around zzz~

Crookie baobao at one of her cutest moments. ^^ <3

Happy CNY to all~

2009-02-01T00:05:00.003+08:00

Went to trim and dye my hair @ the last minute, on CNY eve.
I had a good mind to change color or something..but well, blonde suits me so much that I have had it for the past 7 years O.o''

This time, I went into Auntie Annie's shop and she asked me,"Xiaomei, what you want to do today?" I replied that I wanted to dye but don't know which color to choose.

The next thing Annie suggested was, to try the color that one of the customers had just dyed and I actually said ok immediately lol~

Dark brown hair..still looks odd to me in the mirror.

On the 1st day of CNY, we dropped by Crookie's to visit them and drop them their new year goodies. But the 3 kittens were not around..I guessed the kids terrorized the hell outta them so they hid themselves. But Crookie heard us calling her and there she is..looking nervous due to the crowd+cars around.

There's K with Crookie, she ignored me cos she couldn't recognise me with boots on =((

I had a hard time looking for something decent in Singapore zzz~ In the end, I bought a leopard dress and 2 vests (1 black fur $22, 1 brown sheepfur $29) from Far East Plaza. It was really last minute for the black vest cos all the shops were closing and it was the LAST PIECE..coincidentally that's the shop where I bought my fur bag last year!

Left pic is CNY 1st day's attire. Boots from Taiwan auctions, black fur vest, leopard dress and fur bag...unfortunately coupled with a not-so-natural smile cos the bus was arriving at the bus stop >_>''.

Right pic is CNY 2nd day's attire. Sorta gothic feel dark brown & black checkered dress with heels from Taiwan. I quite like this combination, however this required some special hairdo else the whole thing looks PLAIN like JANE. In the end, I had my hair randomly pinned up like last year.

Special thanks to YJ for the leather+fur+silver accessories round my neck.

Oh and happy CNY to all~ HUAT AH!

2nd attempt on pineapple tarts/balls

2009-01-26T21:45:00.004+08:00

As we had like 2-3 egg yolks leftover from macarons challenge, we just had to re-attempt pineapple tarts before the festive season is over.

*Wonders what we should do with future leftover egg yolks*

K's mum bought 3 pineapples for $2++ only! Nice fragrant stuff~

Following the same recipe for the dough and pineapple jam this time except that we added extra 25g butter to the dough and used fresh pineapples. Vast difference in terms of color between canned and fresh pineapple jam o.0

And this time K made the dough and pineapple jam on his own during the previous night.

It was a race against time as the weather was quite sunny resulting in the butter in the dough to melt faster than expected. K separated the pineapple balls into 1/2 measuring spoon portions while I rolled them into balls.

2 pineapples makes 34balls..that's little. -_-'

Finally done~! This time it tastes exactly like what's sold outside YUM YUM~
Fresh pineapples FTW!

The Macaron Challenge - YY vs K

2009-01-25T11:26:00.008+08:00

Following last 2 weeks of failed attempts on making Macarons, I decided to google for more information and guess what? Searching for 'Macaroon' turned up more results actually!

Today I shall avenge myself *got sabo-ed last week by K*.
Two good websites to recommend:
1. Syrup and Tang
2. Almost foolproof Macaron Recipe

Today we shall pit ourselves against each other~ RAWR~!
YY using the 'French Meringue' method from Syrup and Tang.
K using the 'French Meringue' + 'Italian Meringue' method from 'Almost foolproof macaron recipe'.

Since grounded almond and egg whites were common ingredients, we prepared them together.
We ground the almond from 'Red Man' brand thrice and its still too large to pass the sift!

Morale of the story: Don't buy ground almond from 'Red Man'.

Since we had oven constraints, I started first. Measured the dry ingredients and I started whipping the egg whites using my trusty old hand beater *that made all my chiffon cakes*.

K and I were surprised that the egg whites were beaten till white and shiny after adding sugar.
I have never encountered this at home when I used this hand beater with the plastic container that came with it, so it MUST BE the aluminium bowl o.O

Mix finely ground almond, icing sugar and coco powder thoroughly. Remember to sift everything.

K says that I look damn serious. Well, I am serious AND NERVOUS. LOL~

Finally mixed everything in, phew! I was afraid that I will overmix.

My macarons, piped onto the baking sheet. It took about 30mins to "dry" with strong winds.
They have "nipples"! They are female =( *not good at piping yet*

Baking at 160 degrees for about 10mins *can be slightly shorter maybe*
They started forming feet at about 3-4mins which felt like eternity while I stood in front of the oven, peering in through the glass.

About 25 pairs of shells, I am glad that they didn't stick to the baking paper.
To remove the shells easily, spray water underneath the baking paper and let it soak for 1min or so.

After my shells were done, it is K's turn. He's using the SPAR mixer to beat his egg white.
Above pic is after adding castor sugar and sugar syrup to the egg whites.

Nice glossy stable French + Italian meringue *very sweet though*

Mistake! The instructions says to add half of the egg whites to the dry ingredients, however we felt that step could be omitted so K added the stiff egg whites to the dry ingredients directly.
The dry ingredients turned hard and sandy..into one big clump of mess -_-'' omg~

No choice, K continued to fold the clumps in until what seem like a bake-able mixture while "chopping" the clumps as he went along.

The final piped batter was still glossy but somewhat too watery which resulted in..

Siamese twins due to watery mixture but wtf?
These macarons have feet! And they are STILL GLOSSY!
This recipe is indeed FOOL-PROOF!

Introducing Double Mac-Macaron, for lovers only XDD

K's macarons stuck to the baking paper more than mine, we need to check up on this again.

Finally, we have a chance to pipe some fillings for our macarons.
Decided to use the simplest stuff, chocolate ganache since we have chocolate buttons and cream at home.

Pairing the macarons up first before piping ganache into them.

My finished product. =D

K's finished product *hehe*
YY vs K: 1 - 0

Time to share the joy *read calories* with others, dessert for reunion dinner.
Woot~ so what did we do with the leftover egg yolks?

梅光轩 Baikohken Hokkaido Ramen

2009-01-23T00:18:00.004+08:00

Visited Baikohken for the second time, Baikohken serves hokkaido ramen mainly.

It's a small shop located somewhere off Boat Quay(near Middle Rd), a hidden treasure.

Free ice cold barley tea FTW!

Overall prices are pretty standard about $11-13 for a bowl of ramen.

Gyoza~ $5 for 5pcs.

Shio Ramen comes with bamboo shoots, char siew and leek/spring onions(yummy stuf)~
Whole Egg for extra $1

Shoyu Ramen comes with bamboo shoots, char siew and leek as well.

Personally I find shoyu nicer but K likes shio better.
There's half size noodles here for about $8 which maybe better for me since I felt stuffed after having less than half the bowl of ramen.

It's pretty good except that I don't crave for it *shrugs*

Sankranti AGAIN ^^

2009-01-22T00:25:00.012+08:00

Visited Sankranti again with a different group of friends, this time its the SGSBers for a lunch outing. Although it was our second visit, we still did not know what to order.
After some 15mins and flipping from front to back, back to front of the menu...we decided to order some curry, naan and chicken dum biryani.

Funny menu description for Juice Section. Orange juice..Need to say more?

We were wondering if free juice is available during lunch hours. Well, everyone got a cup of watermelon after we placed orders =D

When the waiter asked,"Drinks?" Everyone ordered a glass of Lime Mint but we didn't know what it was actually hahaha~ Then we sat there for the next 15mins, not knowing what to expect.

Lime mint is quite interesting cos it enters your mouth with a burst of mint leaves flavour and turns into sour lime at the next moment. *yum yum*

Finally food arrived and we were so hungry >_<''
Clockwise top left: 1. Tandoori Murg (Full) - Tandoori Chicken, full of charcoal grill flavour. We suspect its done by a different chef this time round cos it actually tasted better!

2. Cheese Naan - Also tasted better today. Yum~

3a. Mutter Methi Malai - We order this dish without knowing what it was. This dish is simply about peas and white cashew sauce which was very flavourful and AWESOME!

3b. Masam Iguru - Mutton Curry. This curry was pretty alright at first with no hint of spiciness, however we started fanning our tongues as we ate. This was Damien's favourite and he actually finished the whole pot of curry while panting and exclaiming that its spicy but he can't stop LOL~

3c. Chicken Dum Biryani - Ordered to feed hungry men.

4. Fish curry - Very little fish inside and also spciy after few mouthfuls. This fish curry was different from the mutton's curry..so K started wondering how many types of curry do they have in their kitchen??!!

5. Pudina Naan - Not in pic. Mint leaves Naan.

Everything was gone in 30mins o.o! And all gave thumbs up for the meal =D
Meanwhile, the SGSBers were poking around the chilli sauce containers and discovered this strange looking pickle in red sauce.

Presenting the SGSB Challenge - Sankranti's Pickles Challenge!
K tried one piece of pickle and ended up..Damien tried first and he had the same expression lol~

We decided to give up our seats for the waiting customers and the total bill came up to $83.05 for 5 persons, well not bad at all~ While we were at the cashier, Beast picked up some seeds from this glass placed and the seeds tasted minty and sweet. I wonder what this is but it really did freshen our mouths again o.0

In the next few days, everyone was craving for Sankranti again. We will be back!

2nd attempt on macarons ._.

2009-01-19T00:22:00.005+08:00

K decided to attempt an online recipe on making macarons using italian meringue (pour hot sugar syrup into stiff egg white)method. He was confident of conquering the macarons and he set out on his task while I was cooking the pineapple tart jam over the stove.

However, it didn't work out fine when the intsructions said,"add the chocolate ganache into the italian meringue" cos the stiff eggwhite suddenly turned watery o.0

As the result this happened -> watery mixture, but we baked it anyway -> turned out feetless and cracked. K was disappointed and went on to play Beatmania to vent his frustration.

I wasn't about to give up and decided to use french meringue method since it was less troublesome. I preoccupied with beating the eggwhite and told K to mix in the dry ingredients (fine almond powder, icing sugar, choco powder).

Once the egg white got beaten to stiff stage, I turned over and ask,"Almond powder leh?" K replied nonchalantly,"Yah.. inside already"

As we piped the macarons out onto the baking sheet..

YY: "You grinded the almond powder already meh?"
K: "Eh no.."
K: "I thought won't succeed mah, so I never grind it lor" ._.
YY: "YOU SABO ME!" @%#&^@&%#^@$@$

We left the macarons to dry for the next 50mins *meanwhile I went to "screw" that koose upside down for sabotaging my macaron attempt*

After 50mins, the macarons were actually dry on the surface as though they were already baked..so this was what they meant by "surface is not sticky to touch anymore"??

The baked product above had uneven feet, duno if its due to rough almonds but the top didn't crack anymore.

I believe we are one tiny step closer to the Perfect Macaron.

Next week, we shall challenge each other again!
Italian meringue VS french meringue RAWR!!!!

1st attempt on pineapple tarts (17/01/09)

2009-01-18T23:45:00.010+08:00

We decided to re-attempt macarons today and due to the fact of leftover egg yolks, we had to do something that requires the YOLK but not the WHITE.

So~ pineapple tarts become part of the adventure as we struggled to make sense out of tonnes of macaron recipes available online.

Pineapple tarts with melt-in-your-mouth crust and pineapple jam adapted from this blog.

As the recipe used canned pineapples, we decided to go ahead and save ourselves the trouble.
Place 2 cans of pineapple cubes into the blender.

Blend into pulp and drain off the excess syrup.

Time to cook the pineapple jam..but first mix in the herbs and sugar. OMG~ how much sugar did the recipe say??

1 cup of pineapple : 1 cup of sugar OR 1 cup pineapple : 0.75 cup of sugar.
We have 2 cups of pineapple pulp here and since they came from the can, we will use 0.75 * 2 = 1.5 cups of sugar O_______O!!!

*No more pineapple tarts for me ever*

The sugar got dissolved into the pineapple pulp swiftly and we dropped in 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cloves and 1 segment of star anise. And not to forget 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice.

Cooking the pineapple jam over SLOW fire takes about 30-40mins *yawn*, keep stirring else its gonna stick to the bottom of the pot and get burnt. From several comments in the blog, we also noted that pineapple jam that were not cooked till dry(no more water) will get mouldy pretty soon..so we cooked till it was sticky and left it to cool.

Now the pastry dough, put in butter and icing sugar. *SPAR mixer in use*

Cream till cold butter cubes is pale in color, light and fluffy

Add in 1 yolk, vanilla essence and continue mixing.

Once the above is done, put in the plain flour and continue mixing until it becomes a dough.

Hmm~ it did turn into a dough. According to the blog post's comments, some people commented that the dough was too crumbly to roll and one suggestion was to add more butter to it, but we decided to give that option a pass cos we wanted to try the actual recipe *ok, we were lazy*

Let the dough rest in the fridge for 30mins.

It turns out that K has got cookie cutters chucked somewhere in his cabinets and WOOT its just the kind we use for pineapple tarts o.O

The dough proved to be a challenge to roll/*do anything* cos it was crumbly, but we pressed on using one piece for bottom and another for the top *to cover before rolling into a ball* and there we have it..larger than bite size PINEAPPLE BALLS! -_-'''

I must say K has a flair for cutting and printing using that cookie cutter, I didn't have complete patterns like his >=0

Apply egg glaze onto the cookies before baking.

The completed product.

Taste test:

30mins after the pineapple tarts were out of the oven:
YY: It's so crumbly that you got to eat it whole else it's gonna end up all over the place and you can't talk either cos the powder(from the crumbs) will be flying out of your mouth. -_-'' and it's not sweet *despite 1.5cups of sugar???*

K: It's melt in your mouth yum yum..but its not sweet enough, I can't taste the pineapple. O.O

Later in the night(same day):
K's mum: You should use fresh pineapples next time

K's sister: It's sweet but the pineapple flavour is not strong enough O_O

Two days later:
K: It tastes sweet now and the butter taste from the pastry is more obvious.

YY: *What?!* It tastes sweet now and the pastry is no longer dry and power like. Now this is weird.

Conclusion:
1. Use fresh pineapples
2. Cook the pineapple jam with the spices all the way till dry instead of taking them out halfway which was what we did cos we were afraid that the spices may result in bitter aftertaste.
3. Add more butter to the crust pastry recipe.

1st attempt on macarons ._. because of ♥ (11/01/09)

2009-01-11T13:16:00.010+08:00

My first experience with macarons was bad, it gave me an impression of 'lao hong' biscuits XDDD
So from then on, I thought "what's the hype about this silly biscuit? It's lousy."

But today we are doing macarons because of a fellow forummer/friend(VF). His purpose in attempting to bake is to present these macarons to his ♥. But there's one tricky thing here..none of us tasted macarons before -__-''' . According to VF, his ♥ is craving for macarons from this place called Canele. *later in the day, we each bought a macaron ($2.30 before GST for one pc!!!) from Canele and had a taste what most people call a GOOD MACARON*

We met up for lunch and VF bought some ingredients from Phoon huat after squeezing with all the aunties and uncles who were getting ingredients to make CNY goodies.
Ingredients includes eggs, almond (grounded), icing sugar, chocolate powder, castor sugar.

There are tons of recipes out there and we decided to adapt from one of them which was most detailed. But this turned out disastrous later. Anyway, we read of alot of failures from the blog's comments and we warned VF about it and prepared ourselves for failure @_@

Meanwhile, K measured the dry ingredients and instructed VF to mix them evenly..and I started separating the egg whites.

After all dry ingredients were evenly mixed, ground them to fine powder using the dry miller.

Being someone who has not baked before, that's the least VF can help out with.

Dry ingredients were ready so were the baking paper(cut to fit tray) and spatula(dried). Now its time to whisk the egg whites. According to instructions, whisk egg white to foamy and mix in dry ingredients, BUT another piece of paper/recipe says castor sugar is to be added to the egg whites. Confusion occurred in the midst of whisking the egg whites and we had to abandon whatever we were doing to check up the website for amount of castor sugar to add.

We returned to the egg whites shortly but they had started to separate O_O so we had no choice but to throw in sugar in and see what can be salvaged. The egg whites were whisked to near stiff peak and I folded the dry ingredients(chocolate powder, icing sugar and almond powder) into the egg whites.

VF piping the macarons..one has to put in effort to please his ♥ =D

Both of them piped BIG macarons -.-' its supposed to be 1" diameter actually.

The oven was preheated to 170 degrees and we threw in the first tray. They looked fine initially but...

They cracked like nobody's business after 8mins or so..which means either the batter was not dried enough OR the batter was overmixed or smth..so we had CHEWY SWEET ALMOND COOKIES.

The second batch had less cracks and it had "SOME FEET" but a far cry from a real macaron.

Side view of the few pieces of macarons with feet.
After trying those from Canele, we decided we will attempt macarons till we get the SAME QUALITY as theirs. RAWR~~

The season to "waste money" has arrived

2009-01-08T00:36:00.003+08:00

A peek into my facebook account when it was just created, shows one secondary school classmate got married and went to England. Subsequently, after 1.5 years..it seems MOST if not all secondary school classmates got married/ROMed.

Why's everyone trodding the same path? I wondered.

Was at Good Wood Park Hotel last sunday, at K's friend wedding dinner.

I am attending two wedding dinners in 7 days and its really taxing on the wallet.
Mind you its not even high quality food(in general you know) to start with and spending like what 100bucks on it?!!??
Wtf. Ok, I admit that I am a scrooge.

And back to facebook, in case you were wondering how much I spent on attending these secondary school friends' wedding dinner..no I didn't attend any of them.
Why? I wasn't invited, but no hard feelings.

Let's put it this way, I wouldn't think of inviting them to mine either XDDD

Chimilogy Guild & Frens gathering @ Sankranti (02/01/09)

2009-01-03T11:40:00.011+08:00

Back in 2004, a bunch of us got to "know" each other through MapleStory (Maplesea), and together we formed Chimilogy guild. Though most of us don't play maple anymore, mapleSTORY (yah full of trade scams and hunting/selling of equipment) stays with us *or at least for now*

Why we are meeting up in 2009 for dinner? Cos one of our maple friend from Australia is here in SG ^^ According to her bf, she has not tried Indian Cuisine yet so here we are in Little India for the authentic India experience.

I did some "research" (pressing of keyboard actually) and found Sankranti from hungrygowhere.com. This restaurant fits the budget and reviews looks pretty good.

5 of us walked ONE BIG ROUND in search for 100 Syed Alwi Road..cos K refused to believe that its just beside Mustafa. But basically, it is really just across one small lane from Mustafa.
Do note that Sankranti is located on the second floor, cos there's one Indian restaurant by another name downstairs *weird*

We finally arrived at 8pm and there's virtually no one in the restaurant except for 2 tables. K got alittle worried about the lack of customers cos it can only mean one thing, the food sux @_@''

We sat down and to my surprise some other maplers from our guild will be joining us as well.
So meanwhile we sat down and the waiter served us plain water and this yellow juice. Hmm its actually pineapple juice with pulp in it O_O YUMMY!!

I think we took a good old 20mins to decide what to order. So the rest started chatting, while K "analyzed" the menu. After some recommendations from the waiter, we ordered food to be shared among the 8 of us. *however, one of them ate before arriving, so we had one person down!*

Ok let's start introducing the food we ordered:

On the left: Garlic Naan. Reminds me of garlic bread =D
On the right: Pudina Naan. This naan has got mint leaves scattered on it. Pretty refreshing.

Cheese naan, slurp~ nothing revolting or overpowering, just nice and cheesy enough. Butter naan came later on, but I didn't take any pics cos they look the same basically -.-'

Dipping sauce(bottom to top): yogurt with onions and peanut sauce. They are meant to be eaten with the biryani dum dishes.

Clockwise top left onwards:
1. Tandoori chicken. The full chicken is there according to the menu, though we don't think so. This tandoori chicken is juicy, soft unlike those dry and hard ones from Al Ameen. Fantastic stuff. Must-try!
2. Chicken Tawa Masala.
3. Kheema Methi Mutter. Contains peas that were cooked till soft and its very good with naan. Must-try!
4. Fish Tikka Masala. Bits of fish inside with gravy tastes good with naan too.

Items 2~4 all matches the naans pretty well.

The Egg Dum Biryani (reddish colored rice) and Chicken Dum Biryani. Rice was fluffy, so soft that it didn't feel like rice. The eggs were just right, yolks were not overcooked and eggwhite were soft but not runny. The difference between the two is that, egg dum biryani had 2 eggs buried in the rice, while the chicken dum biryani had one egg on top and some chunks of chicken inside.

I think we overestimated everyone's appetite and the "dums" were half finished, so the morale of the story is order less naan cos its filling -.-

Halfway during the dinner, Ong started wondering why were indian customers not served this pineapple juice. So he decided to ask the friendly waiter and the waiter replied as a matter of factly,"Some want, some don't want." He got pwned by the waiter! Lol~
After the meal, Ong requested for more pineapple juice and the waiter glady obliged ^^ Later I realised that the pineapple juice comes FOC!

At about 9pm, the whole restaurant was suddenly full house and there was even people waiting near the door o.O so we called for the bill.

The bill came up to:

Chicken Dum Biryani - $9
Egg Dum Biryani - $6.50
Tandoori Murg(full) - $17.50
Kheema Methi Mutter - $11.50
Fish Tikka Masala - $9.50
Chicken Tawa Masala - $9.50
Butter Naan - $3 x 2
Garlic Naan - $3 x 2
Cheese Naan - $3 x 2
Pudina Naan - $3 x 2
Masala Tea - $2.50 x 2

Grand Total - $101.75 (w svc charge)
After GST..hey there's no GST in this restaurant o.o

All of them - 1(who didn't eat) gave thumbs up for Sankranti, I am so glad that the Indian food expedition turned out fine =)

2009 resolutions

2009-01-02T00:51:00.003+08:00

I want to:

Go snorkeling at Taiwan/Japan
Take Cake Stage 3 course
Take more Bread Making courses
Visit Hokkaido, Okinawa, Tokyo at one go -.-'
Make some progress on my dream/goal
Get a promotion, yes I am looking at it since start of FY08.
Go clubbing or smth with good music, no hip hop
Continue loving my kittenys
See/touch snow at Hokkaido
Learn dancing maybe?
Go ice skating
Neuter the black male thats causing a new influx of kittens
Cut down on carbs

Let me add on to this list tmr...

It's 2009

2009-01-01T12:07:00.017+08:00

Time for New Year Resolutions and to review the previous year, 2008.

Jan 2008:
I watched the Jacky Cheung concert, he's fantastic just like CD quality.

Feb 2008:

It's Chinese New Year and I was happy to try new clothes, new style for visiting =D

My favourite style was 2nd day of New Year.

And it was also Valentine's Day, got a surprise bouquet. Although it was not a "romantically beautiful" bouquet..what to do? I set a budget for K to only spend $100 for vday and my birthday XDDDdd

And most importantly, it was my birthday month and I had "3 days of celebration" with good food.

Mar 2008:

Went to Desaru for 2D1N and got bitten 10 over times by mosquitoes who wouldn't leave me alone at night T_T

Apr 2008:

We discovered our favourite Japanese restaurant, WASABI TEI!

May 2008:

Waited for 1 year to take the chocolate making course by Chef Geert and finally its here~! =D

And we met a pregnant cat, Crookie baobao! The most tamed cat ever.

Jun 2008:

Went to Taiwan/HK for a total of 16 days. Fantastic stuff! And the best thing was everyone came back without extra weight despite eating and eating..well of course we walked alot more in search for food. :)

Jul 2008:

We finally found their hiding place..the 3 kittens(LL,ZZ,BB) borned by Crookie. Cutie pies..so feeding them every morning and evening became a routine for us.
It was also when we first brought Crookie to a vet to treat her wound and she was such a darling

Aug 2008:

And wore a yukata for the first time at Natsu Masturi event. It was fun but the queues were long~

Sep 2008:

Nothing much happened, except we got closer to the kitties and they were officially lap cats(from mid Aug).

Oct 2008:

We were attending Bread Course Stage 2.

Nov 2008:

I became a developer again and there's still 6 months more to go *sigh*

Received a surprise gift from KS. Coach wristlet in PINK!
Although buying branded stuff has never been in me..this wristlet is beautiful.

And I went for Cake Stage 2 course after 1 year+ after the first course.

Dec 2008::

Nothing much, its more of work and I wish I was in Hokkaido.
*Sigh*

Time for some New Year Resolutions.

Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant @ Cavenagh Road

2008-12-31T23:55:00.006+08:00

We were wandering aimlessly along Orchard Road after watching Ponyo, wondering what to have for dinner. Then I spotted this restaurant tucked away in this quiet spot of Orchard Road, Cavenagh Road(one small road away from Ken Ramen)

Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant..nice exterior.

These lanterns make the whole place look more cosy. There were a few Japanese customers in the restaurant so we felt more assured about having authentic Japanese fare. The menu was in Japanese & English alphabets for pronouncing them in English but there were no pics, that posed abit of problem. In the end, we ordered a bento set at $25 and Yaki Soba at $11.

The waitress gave us each a hot towel once we sat down and got us a cup of hot green tea each.
*Green tea is FOC.

The next thing that was served was unexpected. The waitress told us that its a tradition in Japan to eat buckwheat noodles during the New Year's Eve *some info here*

So every customer gets a small bowl each as today is 31st Dec.
*This is FOC too.
Yummy stuff.

My yakisoba. Not bad, every strand of noodles were equally coated with the tangy sauce.

K's bento set came with rice with a plum to mix in, this is how they eat it in summer according to K. There's also appetiser (spinach with sesame dressing) , fried stuff (ebi fry, grilled salmon, egg, tori karaage) and for sashimi(3 slices tuna and 2 slices hamachi).

K says that the cut for sashimi is pretty good, fatty meat.

Closeup on a piece of hamachi sashimi.

Total bill added up to $42.40 which was pretty ok so we will be back again to try the daily specials menu. On our way out, we noticed at each side of the entrance, there was a plate of salt.
o.O

To quote from: http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/shinto-concepts.shtml

"Purification Using Salt -- Mori Shio, Maki Shio
Salt is another major element of purification. In Shinto ceremonies, salt is often sprinkled to remove impurities -- this act is usually called shubatsu. Salt is sometimes placed outside homes in little piles called Mori Shio (piles of salt), usually near the entrance, so people who enter the home are purified. "

So desu ne~

Boxing Day

2008-12-27T23:26:00.007+08:00

My boxing day activities started at 9.30am ..prepared and met up with K for lunch at Bedok.
But the hawker centre was closed *hurmph* and my boxing day was nearly ruined.

Anyway, we had lunch and took a bus to visit some kittens that were posted for adoption (by a EDMWer). What a hot day it was >_<'

Thanks to the helpful guy who took care of the 5 kittens + mama cat. This litter lives on the 12th storey and everyday mama cat climbs 12 storeys to look for them. However, its a really really dangerous area for the kittens. Cos they can fall through the staircase landing and go right down to 1st floor/in between or fall through the gaps (to downstairs straight) at HDB corridoors.

Sigh~ its like waiting for accidents to happen and one of the kittens, K2(named by their care giver) went missing and didn't return for many days.

Mama is blue eyed, so are her kittens >_<

After all the playing and prancing around, the cats and humans got tired and decided to take a rest so off we went to Far East Plaza to shop around. We ended up at "a slice of life" ice dessert shop.

Chocolate banana with peanuts and ice shavings was pretty good, but $4.50 is expensive.

Went to Whisk Cafe to try their stuff cos we saw their review on hungrygowhere.com but then..

K makes better ribs than they do.
Fries are hard.

I would have expected some fries along Long John's Silver standard.

I ordered half roasted chicken and it was ok. The veggies could have been better, I guessed sauteed veggies would give it more oomph than caramelized carrots/onions/potatoes.

Overall, the meal added to $37+..eeeee waste money.

Making Challah on Christmas Day(25/12/08)

2008-12-27T22:15:00.009+08:00

It's the 25th of Dec today and I am having a splitting headache zzz...meanwhile, K is trying out an online recipe for the challah bread. The challah bread is eaten on a holiday and as such K decided to do this bread on X'mas Day.

The challah contains plain flour, olive oil, sugar, eggs and of course yeast and salt. After mixing, it looks one whole sticky mess.

K applying what he learnt from a youtube video on handling high hydration dough, which is to use the scraper to fold/knead the dough till smooth.

Finally it looks decent enough to start its 1st proofing.

1 hour later..it grew by double. We were unsure if this dough will become a challah bread cos it looks sticky and wet -_-
Punch down(above pic is after punch down) and another half hour for 2nd proofing.

After a total of 1.5 hours of proofing, K divided the dough into 6 portions and slowly proceed to roll them out into 14" each. Hmm~ amazingly the dough was able to stretch this long.

One marble slab was not enough..so K "screamed","There's no space!" and another marble slab came into action. Braiding of 6 strands of dough into a challah bread.

I can't describe how to braid this thing cos I got confused myself LOL~ only K knows what he's doing.

Closeup on the braiding and apply one layer of egg wash and proof till double in size.

Overall view. The oven tray is only that long, so is the oven..so the bread will have its ends squashed @_@''

Applying second layer of egg wash before baking. The purpose of applying two layers of egg wash is to let the bread have a nice color.

Interesting effect that braiding has on the bread's outlook.

The texture of the bread.

Close up texture. It's really quite addictive cos texture wise it is soft and fluffy. Taste wise, its abit sweet *slurp* and most of all, it's still soft up till now (2days later).

Merry X'mas to all~

2008-12-24T22:51:00.005+08:00

I am happy to say that I am on leave till Monday =D
But at the same time, I am bored -.-
I am hard to please.

My x'mas present to myself: Shoes from Vivie! I started wearing shoes from Vivie since a year ago and I am totally won over because of comfort and good design.

This time round its a pair of silver heels. $43 for this pair of heels is pretty worth it considering it should serve me for 6months to 1 year unlike Charles & Keith shoes that lasted me for only 1 month *dun ask me why*

My present to K from Elle Homme, a simple office bag.

Some weeks ago, I bought some stuffs from a Taiwan Yahoo Seller. My main aim was getting the boots..thinking to leave them for CNY though. Since I was getting 2 pairs of boots, I thought why not get more stuffs to make my postage worth? So I bought some "hair sponge balls", fringe clip, a dress and etc.

The yellow sponge balls are invented by the Japanese and they are supposed to give you curls. So how does it work? First twirl your hair and make sure it stays within the inside of the sponge ball. To make smaller curls, twirl with "more force" so that the diameter of the inside is smaller.

Half done head of mine. According to the seller, on average a head needs about 10 balls. So I bought 10 pcs at NT5 each. From experience, I would say its more suitable for people with long hair cos its hard to twirl when your hair is too short/layered.

I took them off after 30mins. Then slept on my curls till next morning, I ran my fingers through my hair and the curls sorta went away but at 8pm+ it was still slightly curly. Well, not bad at all.

It's a half day today, I went to Bioskin to redeem my leftover member pts. Did O2 plasma facial and eye lash perm while K went for eye treatment XDD
His first facial experience was quite ok..he fell asleep apparently.

We took a bus-> MRT to The Central and had Marutama again *yes again..*

Then Meiji green tea ice cream with banana at a fruit stall located at the basement. *YUMMY*

And so, my christmas eve is ended..
Merry Christmas to ALL!

Men-Tei Ramen

2008-12-22T23:39:00.006+08:00

We chanced upon the shop name, Men-Tei Ramen while poking around for La Mian recipes.
Since Men-Tei doesn't open on weekends, we have to visit them on weekdays.

Opening Hours:
Mon-Fri: 11am - 3pm, 6pm - 10pm
(Closed on Sat, Sun & PH)

Address:
61 Robinson Road
#01-01 Robinson Centre

Tel: 6438 4140

The posters in the shop says that noodles are freshly made daily and soup broth brewed for 9hours with fresh ingredients from Japan.

Overview of menu. There's just about shoyu, miso, tonkatsu(spicy/non spicy), shio flavour soups to choose from.

Oh o.O they have ramen pepper here.

Heard that they used to close in the evening, now they are opened till 10pm.

K's miso ramen. The noodles at Men-Tei are pretty thin and soft(we didn't request for soft/hard noodles) by default so do request for harder noodles if you don't want them to get too soft halfway. The miso soup is pretty yummy but I think miso broth from Ken Ramen tastes better.

Tonkatsu ramen came in milky broth. Adding a small amount of ramen pepper to this bowl of noodles, makes it taste even better.

In less than half an hour, we were done and K couldn't stop drinking the soup -_-'
But we were not thirsty at all after this meal, so I guess MSG (if any) was kept to the minimum.

Personally, the ramen at Men-Tei were not bad for $13 nett. Each bowl came with lots of ingredients like char siew, bamboo shoots and half an egg..so its pretty worth it. However, both Ken Ramen and Men-Tei have the same problem that is, the bowl of noodles started turning cold when we were halfway through. This is weird, cos it never happened when we were in Marutama. Another reason on why I love Marutama, cos the soup would be piping hot even after I finished them.