My favorite chee cheong fun

is at Boon Tong Kee. Surprise surprise, that a famed chicken place offers such good quality chee cheong fun. Even more surprising is that they don’t advertise their rice rolls. Such a humble cheong fun has been made exceptional by their sauce. I love Boon Tong Kee’s service, when I ask for takeaway and request more sauce, they will be generous enough to give me another pack without any grouse. If I eat in, they will also be generous enough to drizzle another helping of the sauce too. The cheong fun is firm and fresh, not a hint of floury or even a sourish taste unlike some poor quality ones. The beauty is the sauce, savory and filled with sesame oil fragrance and a hint of something unique which I can’t really tell what is it. I don’t even mind eating this than their chicken rice when I go there. It has that much appeal to me

so much so that even their chicken has become the supporting cast.

Yanqing’s Shanghai Kitchen

Yanqing’s Shanghai Kitchen is located along this row of shophouses that witness several F&B outlets that come and go. It’s along Bukit Timah Road, in front of Sixth Ave Cold Storage. The latest I saw was Tinhill (nice name, Bukit Timah =Tinhill) bearing the brunt of the economic downturn (i think). Somehow Yanqing has remained the solitary winner in this competitive F&B industry among the restaurants over there.

It’s not exactly cheap but recently they have come up with an affordable lunch package. I can’t remember the price since I am not paying. haha. But I know it’s quite worth it judging from the expression of the person who paid for the meal. It will be even a steal if you bring another person along to help you finish the food, I think for 2 persons, it’s quite a heavy lunch.

At such times when I see so much noise in the picture, I wish I have brought my SLR instead of using my point-and-ahoot..

This is the appetizer. Ooh! So good! Drunken chicken, pickled cucumbers, mocked goose (fried beancurd skin) with peanut sauce were gone in a jiffy. I like the mocked goose, fried stuff always taste nicer, don’t you think?

This is a prawn dish. I kind of forgot what’s it’s cooked with but it tasted rather like kung pao sauce. The prawns were good, succulent and fresh. I had to stop myself to eat more of it especially when prawns is one of my favorite seafoods…have to watch my cholestrol level. I think when one gets old and learns to appreciate food, the ironic thing is they can’t eat more of what they like and have to control their salt, sugar, calories etc intake. They have to choose those foods with healthier choice labels and stay away from unhealthy stuff which somehow always tastes so much nicer. Sigh..the lure of forbidden fruit.

But when you are faced with such an amazing delicate and exqusite dish of crab with roe and egg, whatever thoughts of healthier choice are immediately banished from your mind. At least for mine. haha. It was such a well-executed dish, I took a longer while to finish the dish just to simply savor every teaspoonful.

This veg dish is so delish. I think it was some kai lan species. The stalks were real crunchy and fresh. I did not like the strange white mushroom though, tasted weird.

By now, I was already so full. But I could not resist every grain of rice this carbo dish offered. Look at the scallop, it was cooked just right. I felt so bad that we could not finish this fried rice, such a waste of good food.

you are a tough one

I can’t wait for the day to master you.

A Royal Treat-ment

I was treated to watch the movie “Julie and Julia” at Vivo GV Gold Class. It costs a whopping $28 dollars! Made me momentarily stunned; it better be well worth the money spent.

We were ushered into a lounge before the movie. The lounge was exclusively for Gold Class members. I was expecting to be given complimentary snacks or drinks. The only complimentary was a bowl of mixed nuts which did not reflect any sense of atas-ness. Even if you packaged it by placing the nuts in a crystal bowl instead of those kacang-putih conical wrappers also does not warrant us pay you $28 bucks leh…

The friendly concierge whipped out a menu; another shocker; charge us so much for ticket and expect me to pay $4 for a can of coke and some lay potato chips? Not a whole pack somemore, picture showed a handful. Thankfully we smuggled in some snacks..hee. They were nice enough to remain oblivious even if they saw it.

I guess we are paying for the plush electronic seats and rug…wow. The seat can recline to a horizontal position in a smooth and silent movement. It’s so roomy that as I snuggled into the seat, I felt lost in the sea of space, not that it was a bad thing. I nearly fell asleep in it if the show did not start. There is even a service call button to order meals which I saw some did. But I thought it was rather distracting to have meals served intermittently when watching the show.

The seat was so comfortable, ambience was so pleasing that I almost forgot how nice the show was. Moral of the show: Behind every successful woman is the support of a husband. It was such a heart-warming show and made me excited about cooking once again.

Ahh…fish soup is my comfort food

From food republic. Not sure whether there is MSG but the soup is one of the better ones I have tried. Flavorful broth with fresh fish, crunchy vegetables and slurp-worthy seaweed with chilli-padi as an explosive side-kick; what’s not to like?

旺角Taiwan Street Food

旺角Hong Kong Cafe has expanded to include Taiwan street food but seems like Bukit Panjang Plaza is the only location. I always longed for a day when I can go Taiwan to experience their wide array of street food. For now, I can only satiate my desires watching Taiwan variety food show. I got all excited when I saw this place, I can at least have a taste of what street food is like!

This is brasied cold tofu. I did not really like it. Felt it was too bland and the tofu was dense, weird combination of texture and taste.

This is oyster omelette with some sweet chilli sauce. Hmm…I prefer singapore oyster omlette to this. The sauce did not really contribute any oomph to the overall taste. It was also not fried to a crisp, thus there was this soggy taste which made this dish rather dismal.

This is taiwan’s famous 盐酥鸡. I guess the five-spice seasoning saved the day, if not the chicken would be tasteless. At least it was the most palatable dish out of the above.

I think 旺角 still has lots of room for improvement in replicating taiwanese street food. If Taiwan street food taste like that, I would be better off going to Hong Kong..

Not so awesome-est blueberry muffins

I was very excited to try this blueberry muffin recipe. It looks so idiot-proof. Being an amateur, such simple recipes which can guarantee awesome-est is a great motivation to try.

It looked quite promising in the oven, the aroma emitted also quite promising, thus I was quite hopeful it should be quite awesome as what the recipe says.

Not so. I should have followed more strictly to the recipe. I cut down on some sugar which somehow affected the taste of the muffins. They tasted quite bland. The muffins were also rather moist, not as crumbly and dry, very un-muffin like. Perhaps I have put too much yogurt. There was also this floury taste which I did not like. Wondering was the cooking time too short or I added too much flour.

The first batch looked rather flat, I thought it was because I put too little a portion. I tried to put more in the 2nd batch but it did not rise a lot too, I guess perhaps I have stirred too much in the mixing.

After my disappointment, I decided to try making cornflakes cookies which is more idiot-proof than the muffins. Maybe my mood affected the cooking, it also did not turn out well. It was too buttery till the base was soaked in oil and I was told it was too sweet. Next time when I do it again, I must remember to make in smaller batches so that if it fails, at least my “guinea pigs” need not suffer

The day when I turned cutsey

With my nieces. I believe they enjoyed it as much as I do. It’s a rare opportunity we can have a photo taken together so these hold special meaning.

Neoprints. I never thought we will meet again after my teenage life. You have become more high-tech. You kept us so busy with your humongous collection of  words, colors, patterns, templates, pictures of the hundreds. It was a crazy whirl, so much so that I forgot there was a timer and ended up not having time to finish writing my name.

莆田

The only reason we stepped into this restaurant was because it was not crowded. Actually no crowd=mediocre food most of the time, but beggars are not choosers, we were rushing to finish our dinner so we can work.

Ice bitter gourd is one of their chef’s specialties. Even though I dislike bitter gourd, I find this dish intriguing and also the waitress said this dish will not be bitter because you are supposed to dip in honey. I decided to be adventurous but regretted my decision…..honey still could not mask the bitter taste. Had to force feed myself…don’t want to waste money and food. After a few pieces, I gave up.

Shredded meat with bun is like eating kong bak pau (braised pork belly with steamed bun) minus the fats in pork belly but plus the oil in fried bun. Don’t know which is more unhealthy though. Was quite nice, not too oily in taste, the sesame seeds on the bun made the bun more fragrant and the savoury shredded meat went well with it.

This is my favorite dish! Stir-fried yam. I love the fact that it’s both sweet and savory. The caramelized yam in addition to its natural sweetness hit a right note with my penchant for sweet stuff. I think it has been fried with shallots which accounts for added sweetness and savory fragrance.  Really yummy especially the charred bits.

This is their lor mee. I like the noodles. But because it’s starchy, after a while, you kind of feel too jer lak to continue eating it. It’s quite an interesting dish and healthy too, a lot of greens.

This is called huang gua fish, not sure is it huang gua as in cucumber? It’s a new dish not on the menu yet. The fish had been cooked very well, firm and tender and fresh. The soya sauce drizzled over the fish was really nice, not too salty, did not overpower the freshness of the fish.

How can I not eat yam paste dessert when it’s on the menu But it’s average only. I think only yam paste done by Teochews can make the mark, except my mother, she is a hokkien but can create this dish very well.

I realise my f50 fuji compact camera is quite an impressive camera. In low lighting, the noise level still not too bad. I am beginning to appreciate her more.

sesame noodles & egg-in-a-hole

My recent food experiments have been very much influenced by the pioneer woman. Her recipes seem foolproof and her step-by-step pictures help a lot in preparation. Of course, with such drool-worthy food pictures, it is an added motivation to replicate what I have seen.

I modified her sesame noodles by adding more greens and sweating onions, garlic and chilies to create the oil. I think it was a big mistake especially the chillies. The oil was so spicy till it overpowers all other sauces. I thought to add some fried shallots too but I did not control the fire well and got burnt.

I guess the saving grace is the greens; sugar snaps, red peppers, bean sprouts, coriander and spring onions. If not for the fiery taste, the noodles tasted quite alright, quite healthy too.

The next one I tried is egg-in-a-hole. I did not cut the bread properly and it was not even so the 1st attempt was a disaster. The egg oozed out and did not stay inside the hole. I tried the 2nd time by pressing firmly on the bread to prevent 2nd time disaster. So below was the result.

I thought it’s a very creative breakfast. I like the buttery crisp coated around the edges of the bread, the buttery fragrance went very well with the cooked egg. I did not use any salt or soya since I used salted butter.

Next time I will try not to flip the bread to the other side, it sort of spoils the aesthetic appearance of the whole dish.

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