Sushi

First day of chinese new year, and instead of going around eating food, my brother was dragged by me to embark on a sushi expedition. He couldn't contend with simple normal sushi ingredients, so we busted more than $20 on salmon, tuna, scallop, and the green japanese seaweed thing.

There wasn't japanese cucumber in stores so we settled for zucchini even though you shouldn't do that. There was my special egg and some rice toppings. 5.5 cups of rice and 10 seaweeds were used in total.

3 hours plus later from when the rice was cooked, we have:

Tuna, Egg, Cucumber


Baked salmon (rubbed with salt), Egg, Cucumber

Scallop, Japanese seaweed, Cucumber

And what to do with all the leftover rice and ingredients? We mixed them up and it became Yaki Taki, which we so affectionately termed. To us, it was heavenly, but to the folks at home, it seemed pretty disgusting. Hm.

I'm so proud to say that my brother was a very hardworking student and even though he rolled the sushi with so much force my mat broke after that, he has since succeeded in rolling a decent roll that is not triangular in shape. His future girlfriend MUST love sushi.

Kuih Lapis

My second attempt at kuih lapis. Slightly better than last year's but well, it's still lousy.

The problem, I think, is that my oven temperature is wrong. It should have been more cooked which would have allowed better absorption of the butter making the cake seem less buttery. It tastes quite good, but it's so oily that it's a turnoff.

What a disappointment. One kuih lapis cake takes 3 hours to make at least. How horrible if it screws up.

Oh and because kuih lapis uses a lot of egg yolks, I used the remaining egg whites to make a lemon chiffon cake. But it looks horrid because I was more concerned with the lapis cake.

I haven't done anything successful for so long... My morale is sinking...

Boon Tong Kee

Chinese New Year meal with the gang was at Boon Tong Kee, near Great World City. The place where Spize was.



So we had Yusheng on the impulse! Because it was going at $30.80++

We were so excited we just took about a million pictures of the Yusheng and stared at it till we couldn't differentiate saliva from water. And yes, that's abalone, which nobody was really sure where it all went because we all had just one piece.




And we tried to pour the things on and mutter good wishes, but we failed so badly someone came to help us. Who can remember what peanuts and sesame seeds represent?



And finally, we have good wishes in Chinese and English, because Teresa and Olivia cannot speak chinese... much.



Dinner finally, for or starving stomachs:



The chicken is really good, tender and soft. The kangkong was so spicy and so little and so expensive!



Fried beancurd with green tea mayonaise. Quite a weird combination but Jeremy licked it clean. The beancurd was very nice, crispy on the outside, soft and smooth on the inside. Very good.



Total cost: $ 75. Not bad eh, sharing among 5 people. It was initially $78, but we cheated a bit, by saying that we didn't eat the pickled radish as appetiser. But how would we know you had to pay for something we didn't order! What a cheater.

Then we walked to Tong Shui cafe, and this time we were smarter. We asked if the peanuts they served needed money and luckily we just ate a few and returned to them. Else we would have to burn another hole in the pocket.



They have the most complicated menu. Would you like Hot Lemon Tea with Honey or Hot Honey with Lemon?



Tutti Fruiti Summit. $12 and not good at all. What a complete waste of money. But I think the other dishes they have is not bad. Maybe someday we'll go back again.



If you go there, eat some peanuts, shake the plate to make it seem as if untouched, and return it to them. About 10 nuts wouldn't make too big a difference. And when returning the peanuts, DO NOT CHEW AND TALK.




Because we are retarded and hungry like that. (Mingjie is not in, she was late. Tsk.)

food hunt

I had this food hunt with my primary school friends quite some time ago, but because the pictures just came, so I'm posting it up only now.

First stop: Chinatown

We went to 2 hawker centres, the first one, I gave a recommendation of this Crayfish Hor Fun. I'm pretty sure some of you guys must have tried it before, seeing that this stall is quite famous. Everyone said it was delicious, so the verdict at the end was GOOD FOOD.

The next hawker centre we went to was the one opposite OG. There we ate some hor fun things. The interesting thing about the stall was that they used chee cheong fun to wrap some ingredients up, giving something resembling sushi. Fusion food! But it was too big, even my big, stretchable mouth cannot contain a whole roll.

It was alright, just pretty average food, but interesting and refreshing.

Second stop: Desert Hut

It is located inside People's Park Centre, and linked to OG as well.

There are 2 stall competing with each other there, but go to this stall as it sells the desserts at a cheaper price.

We had Yam with ginko nuts and Mango Sago. Both were delicious. I especially liked the Yam paste because it's so smooth and thick but you wouldn't get sick of it. It would have been better to have more ginko nuts though. Prices are reasonable, at less than $3 per bowl. I will return someday.



Then, we made our way to Botanical Gardens, a first for many of them. Ha, they thought only losers and couples go there, how wrong...

Not only were there 2 miserable white swans in the huge swan lake, (Im pretty sure the previous time I went, they were black swans)

There were 2 bikini babes sun-bathing at the place where we had our picnic. Haha, the guys picked a scenic place to sit. How awesome.

This is the 3rd picnic I've had in 2008, must be a new trend...

I made the egg tarts, Olivia made sushi, Qiyuan, Jeremy and Mingjie made tang yuan, which came in all sorts of flavours. Very original and filling. Samuel and Perry brought along their appetites, even though not much was left after so much food in chinatown.

So before we left, the customary group shot.

This is quite a difficult shot. And all you can see is Jeremy's huge body. Oh and we were all poking our shoulders because... well, inside joke.

Last stop: Island Cremery, all the way at Serene Centre, near Botanic Gardens. (See, we had such awesome plans.)

Because you could stick photos up on the wall, we tried to take a perfect shot. More trouble than you would think. And finally, here it is! The second customary group shot.

Oh before I forget, the ice-cream. Somehow we got all the lousiest flavours but my previous experiences there were much better. If you ever do go there, look out for our picture! It's near the corner seat at the door. (That is if it is still sticking there with that pathetic piece of bluetag.)

After that, we were so full, we walked home, but not before stopping at macdonalds to eat AGAIN.

Plaster prata is so termed because it looks as if the egg is PLASTERED onto the prata. How original!

Egg tarts recipe

As requested:

Dough
250g cake flour
125g butter
25g custard powder
25g sugar
1 egg
vanilla essence (estimate)

Filling
200g eggs (apprx 4)
120g sugar
175ml water
175ml milk

Dough:
1) Rub in flour with butter will a sandy texture is obtained.
2) Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix into the dough.
3) Line the mould evenly.

Filling:
1) Dissolve the sugar in the water over heat.
2) Pour in the milk and eggs slowly, making sure that the eggs do not cook.
3) Strain the mixture and pour into the mould.

Bake at 200 degrees C and for about 20-30 minutes. The filling is cooked once it starts to rise into a bubble, but use a toothpick to make sure. The toothpick should not be too wet.

Don't worry if you overcook and chaota your egg tarts the first time round; practice makes perfect remember!

Spize The Makan Place

Spize The Makan Place, located at River Valley Road, just a few stores away from Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice.

Verdict: Not exceptional nor delicious nor in any way worth a second visit, but there was quite a crowd.
(The reason why I got such a lousy shot of the shop was because there was just too many people and too many waiters.)



When Olivia and I made our way there as we decided to try something new because our initial plan failed badly, we were starving and it was 9pm. So I expected even rubbish to taste good.

This is what I got: Beef horfun which I immediately regretted...so much for trying something new. The serving was HUGE. Really big, even for a starved and hollow stomach. However, the beef was tasteless albeit soft and the gravy too bland. Loads of greens though.

This was what Olivia got: I forgot the name but it's rice/noodles wrapped in an omelette.

The noodles tasted like Char Kway Teow and the first few mouthful was fine, but due to the enormous serving and thick taste, she got sick of it halfway through. As a result, it was left unfinished. There was very little ingredients as well, seeing that it was supposed to be "seafood noodles". I didn't know 2 miniature prawns (tasteless) were all the seafood they had left, what good business.

Then because we weren't satisfied and we still wanted something new, we got a prata. The assortment of prata was too difficult to resist even though I already had prata for lunch. (See previous post.)

If you could guess what prata this is termed, without looking at the answer at the bottom of the post, give yourself a pat on the back and visualize me kowtowing to you.

Curry was too hot, we were dripping mucus at the end of it. Absolutely normal and plain and boring. A chore to finish.

Still unsatisfied, we decided to call on their famous Roti John Special (awarded some recognition). In case you are wondering how 2 normal healthy girls can eat so much, that makes 3 of us.

Roti wrapped with cheese, button mushroom and omelette which was fried with mutton and covered in cheese and chilli sauce. The roti was quite crispy yet soft, but the omelette has such a strong smell of mutton I felt like I was in Little India. It was so overwhelming that I couldn't stomach the fillings we so affectionately termed "John" (Roti John without the roti is just john, no?). So I took out the fillings and just had roti and after that waved goodbye to my appetite for a day.

But it wasn't really that repulsive, we were just so so full...

When we ended, it was 1030pm. And the crowd only grew in size. I wonder if it was that cute waiter which attracted the crowd.

Alright, ready to visualize my kowtowing? The prata is called:

PLASTER PRATA

Can you figure out why it is called that? The answer will be posted in the next post!

hahahaha i'm having so much fun with this plaster prata.

The Roti Prata House

The Roti Prata House

Located at Upper Thomson Road, in other words, near my school! So instead of hanging out at the dreadful J8, a new hangout was discovered through Emelyn whose house is just around the corner, up many flights of stairs, across the main road and 10m away.



This was actually recommended by The New Paper once and true to its reputation, the prata is worth many many visits back. Check out their assortment of pratas... Prices are reasonable as well.



Plain Prata, going for $0.80 per piece. The curry is fragrant and not too spicy. In other words, AWESOME. We licked both plates clean. The prata is crispy and slightly too buttery but nonetheless, still very tasty. It is a bit small though, could have been bigger.



Egg prata. It's bigger and tastes pretty normal. But it is still tasty when accompanied with the curry or sugar.



And after food, we head to Emelyn's nice woody but termites-free house and stare into space till we fall asleep. If this is JC life, then I'm loving it!