My sisters and I

Xmas is around the corner and I am HOME for that. I can't really ask for more. Sent my Xmas e-cards to all my loved ones and all that is left are cakes. My sisters and I are the best combo, of course coming from the same womb and should have the same blood type, we have the same hobbies. My youngest sister, in particular, inherit most of my mom's cooking genes (and thus, she's a goddess at it). This year, me and my sisters have a grand plan of making a Xmas house filled with fairies and santas (Idk how fairies and santas fit in together but never mind). Our base cake is my mom's traditional recipe for pound cake (yums).
The recipe is well-proven but the method needs lots of practicing.

Ingredients:
8 egg yolks
2 egg white

and 6 egg white (whisk separately -- strictly no water!)

275g Flour
200g Icing sugar
200g butter

1/4 tbsp vanili

To make:
1. Put egg yolks, sugar and vanili in a bowl and mix them together.
2. In another separate bowl, whisk the butter until it turns white and soft (it takes quite long, ~ 20 minutes)
3. Mix the whisked butter to the #1. (MIX and not whisk, so there's no need to use the electronic mixer).
4. Put in the flour and mix well
5. Finally, incorporate the whisked egg white in.
6. Put baking paper to your moulds (any mould is fine, depending on what shape you want your pound cake to be).
7. To make different colour, simply divide the batter into 2 and put cocoa powder to 1.
8. Pour into the moulds alternatively.
9. Bake for 30 minutes or until its dry enough at 180 oC!

So, here is the finished product. Amazing and pretty festive, isn't it :D

I ate crabs and I love it!

Singapore is probably most famous for its chili crab. On one of master chef Australia episode, Matt Moran even cooked the famous crab. Well, he cooked the black pepper crab and to that he said he MUST eat this whenever he comes to Singapore.

I finally ate it few days ago for the first time and the second time today at 2 different restaurant so I can totally compare them. lol. At both restaurant, we ordered the chili crab and the pepper crab (one is black pepper and the other one is white pepper) with some side dishes.

1. Long Beach @Dempsey

One thing I love about this place is that it gives you that natural feeling because of its location. Yes, its outdoor and mosquitos are everywhere but i believe the ambience was suitable for seafood dishes. My friend, who is a regular at this restaurant, helped us order most of our foods. We had the famous chili crab, black pepper crab, bamboo clam with vermicelli, and mee soah with crab roe. We even had space for some dessert and so we ordered the Onii (which is Yam or Taro with coconut cream.. yumssss)

For me the highlight of the meal is very hard to decide.. ha ha. I love the black pepper crab but I also can't live without the mantou dipped in the chili crab sauce. However, I'm pretty sure I love the fried mantou as opposed to the steam one (i know!I'm not the healthiest foodie in the world)..

The bamboo clam is also to die for! the sauce has a very strong garlic flavour and on top of the clams and the vermicelli, there lies fried and stir fried garlic for taste.. ahhh.. love it love it love it. it's slightly pricey though at S$12 per clams. but who cares.. I'll eat it again when i go there.. <3

Black Pepper Crab

Bamboo Clam with vermicelli

Singapore's Chili Crab with Fried and Steam Mantou

Mee Soah with Crab Roe

Sea coconut, longan and bean curd

Onii (Yam with coconut cream)

2. No Signboard (Vivo City)

Located at the vivo city (one of the shopping mall), No signboard is usually very busy. We booked at 7.45 and they told us they will only hold the table for 10 minutes. To our disappointment, when we arrived there were so many empty tables.. perhaps because its monday night.But whatever.. 

In this restaurant, we ordered white pepper crab and chili crab (again), fried butter chicken, salad Yu Tiao (Fried Dough), sambal kang kong and malay noodle or something like that. again, the chili crab is accompanied by fried and steam mantou. oh yeah!

Having tried the other restaurant, I honestly chose the previous chili crab over this one. The no signboard's chili crab is slightly more sour as compared to the other one so I'm not a total fan. But the white pepper crab is to DIE for.. awesome shit! its like bak kut teh crab. 

The fried butter chicken is a bit weird. We had a bit of a discussion about what that crumb was made from. It tastes a bit like fried cheese/tofu. but since the name is fried butter, it might just be a fried butter. I really don't know. I should have asked.. didn't really occur to me practically until I write this sentence. 

Fried Butter Chicken

Sambal Kangkong

Salad Yu Tiao

White Pepper Crab

Chili Crab

Well, overall, I would eat again at both places.. But i guess, if i really have to choose, I like Long Beach@Dempsey over the no signboard.

Zouk out and Bak Kut Teh is the aftermath

Yesterday is the famous Zouk Out night. Apparently, its an international event where people from all over the world would come down to this tiny island called Sentosa in Singapore. So in the spirit of being happening, my friends and I felt that we must go. lol. na.. I was just kidding. My friend is a big fan of Avicii.

Anyway, Zouk Out night was pretty amazing. My friend Jane helped us not just to get a ticket but also a room, 5 minutes from the venue! How awesome can that be. There were quite a lot of weird things happened in this kind of event. For example, one under-aged looking girl just blacked out in front of my friend and insisted that she is 21. oh dear, how weird.. I also get to meet many many people. We had 2 connecting rooms and at one point of time, I believe the room had around 20 people inside. Totally massive just on our side.

To the awesome night ahead. (yeah, this was 10PM or something)

zouk out band!

and banner

Kimi, Jane and Me with our zouk out tag!!

I was so damn tired, I practically danced from 10PM to 4AM on a sandy ground! and thanks to my friend who threw sand on me, I even tasted the Siloso Beach Sand (Na.. it's not edible). We also bought old chang eke curry puff but I think I was the one that actually ate it in the end.. ha ha. alcohol has a more intriguing power, i guess..

We went home in the morning and was so tired. Lucky for us, my friend Jane knows a good Bak Kut Teh place. It was a saving grace from the rain too.. 

Yu Tiao.. Put Yu Tiao in your Bak Kut The and you know heaven is on earth!lol

Lime Juice

Home Made Barley

Fish Slice Soup

Salted Veggie

Braised Peanut

Tahu Pok

Pig Tail Soup

Spare Ribs Soup

For me the highlight of that meal lies within the soup! I think I can just drink the soup instead of water next time I feel thirsty.. :p

Now, notice that we have one weird pig part soup on the picture, thats because my dearest friend loves it. omg! I didn't even dare to try it. But if you are daring enough, then by all means.. be my guest. If there are 20 people who are willing to try it for the first time and say that its good, I will try to consider. 

The other dish that I really like is that fish sliced soup. It's really refreshing. So, if pork or pig isn't ur thing, you might wanna opt for it. 

Kimi and Jane hungrily waiting for their food. lol

Paradise Dynasty: Multicolor xiao long bao

See.. xiao long bao is one of my most favourite dish in the world!I promised you I can eat boxes of it myself. Xiao long bao (also called shanghai bun) is a type of dumpling that has soup surrounding the meat. The way to eat it is also quite special: you have to tear the skin open and drink the soup (put vinegar if you like) before you eat the whole dumpling. Just to think about it, my tongue is already dancing in a joy.

So, months ago when my friend first tried this box of xiao long bao from Paradise Dynasty, I just know I must try this thing soon.. I have heard some people say that it wasn't that good and I, after  my recent eating experience there, simply can't understand why! I love it and promised myself I should go to eat it again.. soon.. Now, while Im still fresh with the memory of each flavour and which colour is which flavour, I decide to blog it.  Clock-wise from the white colour (original): Foie Gras, Crab Roe, Cheese, Black Truffle, Szechuan, Ginseng, and the one in the middle is the garlic flavour. I admit that even the meat taste super good and for those of you who wonder where the different flavours are from, I'm pretty sure it comes from the soup.

Now as for the noodle, I think its not bad but its just not extremely spectacular. I will happy if I eat it but I won't crave for it. <3

Dan Dan Men

Multicolor Xiao Long Bao

A blissful HK Trip

Just came back from my holiday of the year. I was crazy enough to book a ticket and flew to HK because I was too sad and I needed something to cheer me up. Turns out, HK trip it is or was. I had a fun 5 days and 4 nights in HK. I was saddened because I planned for all the restaurants to visit but didn't get to ANY of them. I have no idea why. I guess thats why people say human can plan but only God knows the end. So true. Let me show you my initial itinerary.

Look at how neatly arranged our itinerary was. I had everything to eat planned from brekkie to dinner only to found that we had free brekkie buffet at our hotel so good bye and so long brekkie. We can't speak cantonese and had no inet connection (not that we didn't try to buy a sim card, we did but getting connection was way to F***ed up in HK), and thus no google map which means no way we know where our exact location was. 

But.. we discovered few other foods that I didn't expect and to cheer myself up, I'm gonna start to reminisce about it. Perhaps through few blogs. 

Day 1 - Lost in Mong Kok

Our mission to go to a street food fair at Soy Street was crashed when we reached the place and all we found was a street with no sign of food at all. We ended up eating at a cafe where there were plenty of people eating. My chinese character reading is so limited, I probably only know how to read numbers, and nothing else so I had to order their english menu. Unfortunately, (and I always suspect this), they don't have the same menu and I can't find whats the guy next to me eating. But, thanks to my bf's pro chinese, we were able to order the beehoon!

Some street next to soy street beehon. 

Now, I am sorry for my lack of knowledge in the food name but the beehoon was surprisingly delightful. I believe there was some tomato paste mixed into this dish with spam + bacon + Ham. Also, Bean Sprout which I couldn't really taste nor see (actually I simply can't separate it from the lot). Whatever it was, my hungry stomach gratefully accepted it.

The menu sign board at the restaurant

The restaurant ambience

For dinner, we had a restaurant near our hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, KowLoon. Again.. the name of it was unknown, most likely because it was in chinese... But it was a noodle soup restaurant and their specialty is in their fish soup noodle which I  found very pleasing. I even love their fish balls and fish cakes. But the best thing about this restaurant is their Chili Oil. OMG.. that night, I decided that HK has the best chili oil in the entire world. We also ordered another this which I can barely remember how it tastes like. It was just an ordinary beef char kway teow.. I had no idea why I even allowed that on my table.

That awesome fish soup noodle with fish ball and fish cake.. YUM!!

A night out at Timbre, Singapore

Finding a chill-out place in Singapore is probably one of the easiest thing to do. Last night, in a spirit of catching up and reliving some Sydney memories, me and my besties went to this place called Timbre. I'm pretty sure if you are Singaporean, you are very familiar with this place. They have several locations and I have been to two (surprise, surprise). Well, the place is quite chill although the singer on the platform wasn't really the best bar singer and its super bloody HOT! I mean, I'm not blaming them for the Sg weather but its hot hot hot!!I was literally meltinnggggg..

They have different deals every night (like every bar of course). Our deal last night was one jug of frozen mojito for S$38++. sweet deals indeed! I had 1L of beer myself (ordinary, I KNOW!!) but I was trying not to get drunk overseas.

Food wise however is pretty good in my opinion. I tried their roast duck pizza, supposedly good.. haha.. but somehow the cheese doesn't go thatttt well with the base and the duck I must say. it tasted a bit milky-ish.. (well.. i don't drink milk because I'm a lactose intolerant wanna be). But on the other hand, I like the crumbs. The choice of sauce is pretty unique as well... guess what its the Peking Duck sauce..

Here is that Roast Duck Pizza

Roast Duck Pizza, Timbre

Of course being the glutton in the group, I always opt for more.. When I saw the table behind us ordered a luscious chicken wing, I just had to order. So I did.. (of course, duh?!). The chicken is fried well if that helps, the sauce.. Idk.. it doesn't go very well with my beer and I'm sorry I have tried better chicken (read: Jeans Chili Chicken.. hahaha) so, I'm not gonna dream about it too much.

Timbre Buffalo Wings

Brekkie: My favourite meal in a day!

Four ate Five commune table

Brekkie is probably the meal that I waited the most. (of course, I waited one whole night for it.. duh?!). anyway.. I enjoy brekkie in a cozy place where I can eat my plate of eggs and sausage with a cup of tea accompanied by a bunch of friends on a beautiful sunday morning.. ah. what a blissful life. Among all these brekkie places I have been to, Four ate Five is probably one of those place that I would STRONGLY recommend to friends. Yeah, I'm pretty sure most people who is a brekkie fan know this place by heart. If you are like me and live near Kensington, I'm sure 393 bus can take you straight away from UNSW bus stop to the bus stop right in front of this place. This place offers classic OZ brekkie with a twist. By that I mean swapping scramble egg to creamy corn which straight away win a place in my heart. I always order their sweet potato chips as a side. Recently, the sweet potato has been quite disappointing as they are all soggy but nevertheless, I always have faith that one day, it will return to its old goodness self.  lol. 

French Toast, Four ate Five

Baked Eggs, Four ate Five

Creamy Corn, Four ate Five

Tim happily held his cup of happiness. (read:banana smoothie)

A tribute to the most awesome uni life!

Last Thursday (1 December 2011), I received my mark for this last semester. and YEAH!!! I AM A CHEMICAL ENGINEER!! yippie!! waiting for it to be confirmed but I'm already over the moon. So, to express my gratitude to the most awesome uni life, I am compiling list of things I always eat as an undergrad. Too bad I have got no pics for most..

1. Taiwanese Express

Why do I put this as number 1? Because the foods from this restaurant have accompanied me through most of my sleepless nights. I have few favourite dishes from this restaurant:

- Taiwanese Pork Chop (AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME.. although recently not as nice as the first time I ate it, but whatever... I'm too attached to it to get separated)

- Beancurd Chicken. 

- Minced Meat Noodle ( NO BEAN SPROUT PLEASE!!) with lots of their handmade chili! (of course, you would end up in the toilet 2 hours after eating so please don't eat this before something important such as thesis meeting or something like that -- true story). 

- Yoghurt Ice Tea (my friend said it tastes like his shampoo when he tried it, but I say it suits all the meals just nice!)

- Chicken Nugget (oh my bf would eat this on any day.. and honestly, the chicken is so much better than Shin Lin. Totally one of those snacks )

- Fish Cake (eat it with their chili too.. no regret!)

2. Siam Fusion

So on my other post, I have mentioned this place. But I just have to say it again because for some reason I eat way too many times at this place when I'm in uni. 

- Crispy Soft Shell Crab (eat it for lunch because they have lunch special yo! I'm telling you, KFC has recently changed their name to Kentucky Fried Crab just because the crab version is so awesome)

- Crispy Chicken with Holy Basil (on a day when I don't feel like crab then crispy chicken it is. again.. go for lunch so you won't feel too ripped)

- Raad Na (Noodle with gravy. Period)

3. Cha Time

For anyone who lives in Sydney and haven't tried this, I don't know what you have been drinking. But personal preference: 

- Passion Fruit Green Tea with pearls

- Taiwan Mango QQ (reminds me of my thesis days.. drinks that I bought almost everyday)

- Grape Yaleto with Jelly (even for a person who drink anything at extreme sugar level, I would still ask for 50% sugar only!)

- Longan and Red Date with Herbal Jelly (Love it ! Love it ! Love it! The drink isn't as scary as the name, it doesn't taste like medicine at all)

4. Shalom

I only have one favourite dish in this restaurant and that is their Bakwan Shalom. But again, also not a food you would want to eat before any important meetings.

5. Matthew Salad (Fresh food market or something like that??!!)

I hate veggie, I can tell you that. But I will eat a box of salad from this place. weird much?! I know.. 

Well, my combo of salad is:

corn + egg + fried onion + green peas + chick peas + sweet potato + bacon with mustard seed mayo! can't ask for a better uni food.. 

PC THESIS CELEBRATION

I miss my PC buddies. ah.. for those of you who are not a member and would like to know what it is. PC stands for Poop Comrades. (yeah! lame.. i know.. but guess who came up with the name?! ah nvm.. thats a story for other blog). In this occasion, I would like to give a tribute to my PC buddies for being great friends and foodies. Our group started with something far from food. In fact, its our design project ( and by design project, it is a chemical engineering design project involving all those engineering stuff you don't wanna know).But, being a nerdy, geeky chemical engineer, we also find great joy in eating. We have tried plenty of restaurants but I believe our thesis celebration dinner was one of the most memorable.

Our thesis celebration took place at BECASSE! oh my, my most favourite restaurant in Sydney ever!! We were damn lucky to get a place at their chef table much less than the original cost (read: min. of $2000!!). Becasse only offers a 7 course degustation at $150 and I'm not complaining. (-- why would I?! we ended up eating almost 10 course in the end)

Snacks

Home Made Bread

Home Made Butter

The famous Spring Still Life

Passion Fruit Souffle <3

Poopies Girls - Levina, Ellen n Me <3