Food Celebrations!

23/02/09, Monday - As everyone has worked extremely hard for our Backstage Pass production over the last two weeks, all of us decided to go all out to celebrate our hard work. And one of the ways was, of course, binged!

We went over to this newly-revamped shopping centre called Pomo (it was formerly called Paradiz Centre) and after viewing a few eateries, we decided to settle for Thai food at Lerk Thai.

There was a lunch promotion on that day where two persons who purchase two set meals (S$11.00 e.a) and the third person will get that extra meal for free.

The set meal consists of a soup, starter and a main course. Sam, Pet and I decided to go for the set meal deal while the rest decided on the ala carte meals.

First stop, the Tom Yum Soup. It was really good. There was a huge chunk of fish and other seafoods swimming in the red and spicy seafood broth.

Then the starter arrived and I chose the Deep Fried Prawns which resembled Japanese Ebi Prawns. They gave the papaya salad as the side dish to compliment the greasiness of the prawns.

For my mains, I chose Green Curry Chicken. It wasn't really fantastic after all. Instead of chunks of chicken, there were only slices of chicken and the curry was mildly spicy. I could only wish the curry would be spicier.

As for Sam, she chose Thai Fishcake as her starter. I think it looks really good although I didn't really taste it.

Pet ordered Fish Fillet with Hot Sour and Spicy Sauce yet to me, it appeared more like a Sweet and Sour Fish.

Halfway through the lunch, Sam suggested we eat dessert at Peace Centre. So after lunch and where we leave some space in our stomach, we hopped over to the Dessert Lover at Peace Centre. It has been a long time since I went there. The last time I ever went there was with 5ofus. We used to eat desserts whenever we have breaks in between our classes.

Anyway, the prices of the desserts have increased. For instance, a bowl of Glutinous Rice Ball in Peanut Soup cost S$2.20 whereas previously it was only S$2.00. After studying the menu, I ordered the Black Glutinous Rice Porridge (S$1.50). I like the way how the coconut cream is being drizzled on top of the blackly porridge. Yum!

Here was what we've ordered. [L-R] Yam Paste, Mango Sago, Walnut Cream, Almond Cream, Black Glutinous Rice Porridge and in the middle, Black Glutinous Rice Porridge with Ice-cream.

All of us really had a wonderful time eating those wonderful desserts. I still love my Black Glutinous Rice Porridge.

After our bump out that evening, some of us went ahead with dinner at PastaMania. Apparently, I learnt that PastaMania has become a Halal-certified establishment thus one of our classmates, Ila can dine with us. As my stomach was filled from the super heavy lunch, I could only eat something light.

In the end, I ordered Garlic Bread (S$1.80) and Aglio Olio (S$4.90).

Somehow, I regretted eating their garlic bread because it wasn't really nice. There wasn't enough salt and butter. The garlic taste wasn't there as well. Oh well.

As for Aglio Olio, that was my first time trying it and I had a mixed feeling on that dish. Overall, it was still edible. Here is an ordinary shot of Aglio Olio.

Here is another shot of that dish but one can see the pippin hot steaming of that pasta dish with all that smoking presence. Hah!

Strangely, that day was a day where all of us eat to our heart's content. I guess that is called satisfaction.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day 14

8/2/09, Sunday - On the second last day of Chinese New Year, I headed to my First Uncle's house for dinner. His wife whom I addressed Auntie Esther cooked up a storm for all us.

Here were the dishes:

Duck Curry. Auntie Esther told us that this dish is actually a Myanmar dish and her maid, who happens to be a Myanmar national, cooked this dish. Since I seldom eat duck, I only ate the potato.

Braised Pork Belly with Boiled Egg. As you know, I don't really take Pork Belly so I chose the boiled egg.

Prawns in Tomato Sauce.

Minced Pork with Mushrooms.

Stewed Chicken in Black Sauce and Prunes. Apparently, this was one of Auntie Esther's new creation where she infused sweet prunes into this dish. It didn't really tasted funny as a result of the combination between sweet and savoury. Instead, the chicken meat was really soft.

This was my plate. As I was hungry, I had a second serving of the above dishes minus the rice.

Yet again, the Chinese New Year is going to end soon. Although it seemed like there isn't any festive atmosphere this year, I do hope I could feel the atmosphere next year.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day 13

7/2/09, Saturday - Three days before the Chinese New Year comes to a close (read: sad), I had a Chinese new Year lunch (again!) with my maternal relatives at Zhou Kitchen at Square Two.

There were a few plates of Keropok (crackers) on the table and I believed the flavour was prawn. My cousin, Wen urged me to try dipping the Keropok with the given sweet chilli sauce was also on the table. I dipped it with apprehension of course, and surprisingly, it was really good.

Our first course was Seafood soup with chunks of fresh prawns swimming inside the brown broth. Something different from the usual Shark Fin's soup.

The second dish was Broccoli with Mushrooms and Abalone. Sadly, the abalone was a small one. Didn't get enough of it. Hah!

Then, the Steamed Fish course arrived in designated small bowls. One of my cousins actually loved the sauce of this dish.

The fourth course was the usual Crispy Chicken. It was nothing special about this dish.

While we were at this dish, some of us were discussing about wasabi which is called horseradish and it can be found in most of the Japanese food. My little nephew, Brandon is often tricked into eating this green wasabi thing because the colour resembles green tea. So anyway, as we polishing our chicken dish, the next dish happened to be Deep-fried Prawns with Wasabi Cream.

The flavour wasn't really strong enough to cause my nose to drip. Instead, it was quite mild.

The second last dish was the Glutinous Rice fried with Chinese Sausages. It seemed that I have been eating this dish throughout this Chinese New Year's period.

Finally, the dessert was a Lemon Sorbet with Jelly. The sorbet was soft and sweet. It reminds me of our local Ice Kacang.

After our heavy lunch, all of us headed to my fifth uncle's place for tea and a game of mahjong. Then for tomorrow, it would be my first uncle's place where he will host dinner for us. More food pictures!

Thank you the 5ofus for the Macaroons!

On thursday, I received an instant message from Ellie asking me if I was in school as she had something to pass to me. Since I was in school, I agreed to meet up with her in one of our school blocks.

When I arrived there, she passed me a bag which concealed the rest of the details inside the bag. She said this bag was a gift for me from our 5ofus group and it was like a token of appreciation because I invited them over to my place for dinner last Friday. Then guess what was inside the bag? It was macaroons! And it was from Bakerzin!

There were altogether six assorted macaroons in the plastic bag and I couldn't bear to eat them in school because they were so beautiful. Fortunately, I brought a container from home that day which housed some Chinese New Year's goodies. But when I went back home, a few macaroons were badly smashed up. Perhaps, the macaroons were too big for the container which resulted it being dented.

Nevertheless, I did try some of those lovely and sweet macaroons. I had the Grape (Purple), the lemon (Yellow) and the Raspberries (Red) ones. No matter how much I eat these macaroons, I am still unable to decipher the real taste behind the macaroons. So I was telling Ellie that perhaps we should initiate a "Guess the taste of the macaroons" game. She just laughed when I told her the idea.

Then I realised they also wrote a card for me. Here is the card.

They even wrote a thank you note and I was moved when I first read it.

I am really privilege to be loved by this bunch of people and to the 5ofus, I hope our friendship will last till we grow old!

Macaroons Galore!

Recently, Bakerzin has been offering promotions and their desserts. Last month, the cost of the Warm Chocolate Cake (U.P S$9.80) was reduced to a very good price tag of S$4.90. Pity, I didn't manage to try that cake despite my cousin telling me how nice and warm it was. However, this month, the cost of my favourite Macaroons (S$1.60) has been slashed to S$1 per macaroons. *Screams in delight*

So last Wednesday, I went over to my cousin, Yi's place for dinner and her lovely mother offered to cook dinner for me even though I arrived late at her house. After the dinner, Yi finally showed me a packet of assorted macaroons and immediately, I was over the moon. She told me that there weren't many choices when she went over to the shop. So eventually, she picked what was available.

(Top Left -R) Coffee, Orange, Rose and Raspberries macaroons.

The flavour above may be wrong except for the Coffee and the Rose macaroons as I was able to decipher it.

But those macaroons were really nice. Yi even gave me a packet to bring home for my family. Although I tried to dissuade her from giving me that packet, she still insisted on me bringing some home.

Yet do rest assured as there will be another macaroons coming right up!

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Seven and a Peach Garden Revisited

1/02/09, Sunday - Day Seven of CNY signifies "Ren Ri" which means it is everyone's birthday. I kinda forgot what is the real meaning behind it but I guess everyone knew that day seven is everyone's birthday. My mum cooked seven kinds of vegetable for everyone in my family to eat before we had our dinner at Peach Garden Restaurant (yes, again).

This time, we had all the relatives (my dad's side) having this dinner with us. Yet again, we had our Fa Cai Yusheng. I didn't take this picture as I had taken it previously. But the rest of the dinner course was different from yesterday. Our soup was different as well. We had Braised Baby Superior Shark Fin's with Bamboo Pith in Golden Broth. I'm not sure how superior the shark fin was but the soup wasn't that fantastic.

Then we had the Crispy Chicken which I tried my best to attack my favourite chicken wing first before the rest of the people take it. Hah!

And the Sweet and Sour Garoupa which was being sliced up before I could take a good picture on that.

Speaking of taking food photos, I was trying my best to take all these pictures before everyone starts to dig in and most of relatives were nice enough to allow me to take the pictures firsthand.

This was the Stir-fried Prawn with Fresh Scallop, Celery and Walnut. I do love the crispy noodle which double acted as a basket. I just help munching on those.

By this time, most of us at the table were struggling with our next course that was Fried Glutinous Rice with Chinese Sausages.

Finally, our dessert arrived. We had something hot today than some chilled desserts. Double-boiled Red Dates Tea with Glutinous Rice Ball was what they called it. The soup was sweet and the rice ball was the sesame flavour - my favourite.

Unfortunately, people from the next table (the older generation) couldn't finish some and they passed it on to us when we were all struggling. So we tried our best to finish everything, with struggles of course.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Six

30/1/09, Saturday - On this day, all my relatives from my mum's side came to our place for a visit. Thus, we have to clean the house and prepare some food for their arrival. My mum kindly cooked slices of 'nian gao' (means new year's sticky cake) with an egg batter. She would pan-fried it and soon, the cake would be soft and chewy. Yummy! Most of my relatives were often looking forward to eat slices of those with either tea or coffee.

For dinner, we headed down to Peach Garden Restaurant at Thomson Plaza. Before we entered into the restaurant, I happened to see Tay Ping Hui, a Mediacorp actor walking in opposite direction. Immediately, I nudged my mother who was looking elsewhere. Once I notified her, her head instantly turned to his walking direction. He is really tall. But he didn't smile at us or something. Maybe I'm too small for him to notice. Hah!

When we sat down on our designated table, two plates of oranges and sweet walnuts were placed on top of the table for us to munch on before the commencement of the dinner.

Once we gathered everyone on the table, our first dish finally arrived. Guess what, it was Fa Cai Yusheng again! (yes, again!) We mixed the Chinese Salad again. But what was interesting about this particular yusheng was that there were slices of crispy lotus.

Our second course arrived after the Yusheng. It was Double-boiled Shark's Bone Cartilage Soup with Shark's Fin and Tien Shin Cabbage. What a long title! Looking at the creamy soup, I reckoned it was a very nourishing soup since it was double-boiled.

The third course was Crispy Roast Duck. It was succulent and filled with fragrance. My cousin, Shuyang loved it.

This was my favourite dish - Deep-fried Fillet of Sea Perch with "Nonya" sauce. It was a really big piece of fish and the meat was moist and soft. The sweet and spicy sauce was fantastic. This was so much better than Fish and Chips.

The fifth course belonged to Braised Pig's Trotter with "Fa Cai". I only ate the meat and not the soft and rubbery fats. I gave it a pass.

Then came the Stewed Spinach Noodle with Live Prawn and Minced Meat Sauce. The noodle came in green colour but the noodle, which resembled our local, Mee Kia, tasted soft and less chewy.

Lastly, the desserts. We were given three kinds of dessert - one, their signature's and Nian GaoWater Chestnut Pudding. The nian gao tasted different from how my mum's cooked it and the pudding was really good. Wish I could have more.

The other dessert was Chilled Jelly Royale with Queball. However, I didn't take any pictures on that.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Two

27/01/09, Tuesday - According to the Chinese New Year traditions, the second day was supposed be the day for married daughters to return home to visit their own families. My family used to visit my maternal grandmother many years on this day before my late grandmother passed away six years ago. So instead of visiting my grandmother's house, we visited my second uncle's (my mum's second brother) place. We went there early as the older generation were all gearing up for a game of mahjong. As the next day was a school day, I brought my work to do. Bah!

For dinner, my second auntie cooked up a storm. But before the dinner commences, we had our usual Fa Cai Yusheng (again!).

This time round, we had more people than the first day. We mixed the Yusheng as words of good fortune were coming from everyone's mouths. I never failed to enjoy mixing the Yusheng as this dish can be termed as the Chinese's version of salad. Now for the main dishes, there was mutton curry.

The lovely pan-fried pork chops. I remember when I was young, I would love to eat this kind of pork chops with my hands till there wasn't any meat left in the bone.

Then, there was Sambal Chicken or Curry Chicken.

My auntie's latest creation or recipe, Mango Prawns. Initially, I thought it was pumpkin prawns.

The greens - Vegetables with Baby Abalone. Aren't they cute?

Lastly, the venomous and unhealthy Kong Ba (means, Fatty Pork Belly) which goes perfectly well with steaming buns. No, I didn't eat that of course.

This was my plate, filled with each of the above, except for the Kong Ba and Pan-fried pork chops. I have been eating less these days due to my health. But I guess eating in moderation is better.

Oone of the main highlights or rather the attention wasn't on the food, but it was on my two lovely and naughty niece, Chloe and her elder brother, Brandon. The latter has grown up so fast and began to look really handsome; whereas, Chloe is still as lovely as ever. With them around, there won't be any peace.