Before Dom left for United States (Promises)

This is another backlog. After Dom left, I think I have been quite hardworking on my blog. :p

An entry about the things we did before he left, promise to cook for me finally fulfilled after like 5yrs of waiting and my anticipated trip to Changi Boardwalk. :D
Dom Dom in my house kitchen, cooking potato patties and lemongrass chicken shrimp (from here) without lemongrass and with shrimp being replaced by big prawns.

The total damage of the 2 dishes came up to $45.20!!. The prawns taking a huge portion of the cost, being that Dom cannot find cooked shrimps ($7.95) so he bought a box of frozen big prawns ($28.90). Oh well, in any case, we just used a portion of the prawns. He cannot find lemongrass, neither do I know where to get it, so we skipped that ingredient. Oh, Dom also replaced big onions with small onions with the fact he don't like onions at all so the smaller the better. He never buy any spring onions because he don't like that as well. >.< The taste was quite nice, and smelled yummy. A very good start for someone who cooked for the first time.

Great job, Dear dear.


Changi Boardwalk

Starting off with our plan, we saw the map and I was quite greedy, wanting to explore the whole of the Boardwalk. There were 2 routes, both also very long. Dom estimated the time for the whole walk will probably be 2 hrs for each route. I estimated our bus journey via no.2 will be 2 hrs as well. Ended up we overestimated the time for the entire trip. We will reached there, according to plan, at about 1pm, to have lunch at Changi village. We should set off our first route at about 2pm (the route around the buildings) and finished at about 4pm, to take a short break (1/2hr) and by the time we set off on the 2nd route (along the coast) should be late afternoon to evening hence should be very cooling and filled with nice scenery of sunset. Upon finishing, we shall have dinner at Changi village again.

Overestimated bus trip let us reach at 12pm instead of 1pm. Our lunch ended at about 1pm. The first part of the journey ended at 1:47pm. Even taking a short break, we were very well ahead of schedule. Before 2pm we embarked on the 2nd route. We finished at about 3pm. How to eat dinner at that time? We just have some snack and moved on to go Suntec city, stopping by National Library for my toilet break and Bras Basah Complex to check out some books.

Ah Chew desserts

Honeydew with sago



Mango with pomelo

The desserts were nice, despite having mini ice balls inside which made the texture less smooth.

National Day dinner

The main courses were cooked by me, using the recipe from the cookbook meant as a belated birthday present from my friends, Wenwei and Huiqing. Thank you to my friends once again. There were adaptations. I don't take mutton hence I used beef. Steaks were expensive and still are, hence used roast beef ham to substitute. This was still expensive in comparison to normal pork and chicken ham. I had a lot of red wine in my fridge and hence it came to be useful in making the sauce. The sauce was quite nice.

The tiramisu was bought from the Cold Storage at Leisure Park, from something Swiss company.
It tasted delicious, with the liqueur not overpowering the entire taste.

Dinner at Stonegrill

This was my first experience using stone to cook food, honestly, I don't really like it. The stone was really hot, big and bulky too, I was so scared to burn my fingers if I touch it accidentally. It made me feel cumbersome trying to navigate my fork and knife on the table.



The soup was not bad with the cheese bread (a surprise to me) and the chicken was average in my opinion. The appetizer which cost $2 was so hard that it made my bracket came off (that cost $20), so unlucky. The potato wedges came in a bowl covered with cheese. Probably due to my braces, these soft wedges appealed to me more than the rest.

Japanese food at TM (Hokkaido fair)

Okay, this is a backlog clearing now.
The pictures were taken some time back. The first was a curry bun, followed in order from left to right - crab cream corochan, rice stuffed squids, japanese mochi balls in sweet sauce, with seaweed, with different fillings, sweet potato cake and a rice cake with red bean stuffings.

The squid rice thing was not really worth the queue, it tasted quite salty, other than that, not much special about it. I was a bit disappointed.
The curry bun was normal, but the lack of queue was sort of good.
The crab cream thing was very nice, despite no actual crab meat, the gravy is thick and fragrant. This was one of my favorite food of the Hokkaido fair.
The rest of the snacks were interesting, and those red beans were delicious. The sweet potato cake tasted really sweet potato-ish.

Anyway on my subsequent visit to TM again, I never buy any more of the Japanese food.



The cakes I bought from the Royals shop opposite the NTUC were such gems. They were really delectable. The carrot cake tasted fabulous and the tiramisu also stood out from the other tiramisus I tried in the past. The chocolate mint was nice but could have been better should there be a stronger hint of mint in the taste.

Island Creamery ice cream ( ICic )

This is a fresh post. Fresh-out-of-the-oven post, or should be fresh-out-of-the-freezer? Anyway, Jiahao, Jon and I went to the Island Creamery to eat ice cream today( haha, other than that, Jon prob went there to see chiobu? :p ).

We tried Apple Pie, Burnt Caramel, Nutella, ReversO, Black Forest, Teh Tarik, Horlicks and Khaula Latte flavor as arranged in the order from the pictures. The first two pics were taken halfway when we were eating, hence the amount was visibly reduced.

Anyway, here are my opinions on the ice cream flavors ( taste buds differ in different people ):

Apple Pie: One of favorites, the tint of cinnamon goes well with small chunks of apples and the ice cream was delicious, not too sweet or rich to the extent of causing thirst.

Burnt Caramel: This was not bad but the burnt taste was not present and hence I wonder why the name 'Burnt' Caramel?

Nutella: This I tried before, tasted okay to me, nothing much special and I guessed Jon liked it a lot since he like the spread very much. Jiahao also liked this a lot.

ReversO: This was the first flavor I tried and I really do not find it appealing. It was too chocolatey and rich that I felt very thirsty after eating this ice cream. However, this became Jon's favorite.

Black Forest: To me, the taste seems similar to ReversO with a strong chocolate taste at the start, giving way to a sweet cherry taste. This seems a better choice for me. Being less rich in chocolate taste, hence will not feel that thirsty after eating this ice cream.

Teh Tarik: I loved this. The taste was sweet, full of Teh Tarik, with a slightly sour after taste which was quite nice. It was nice on the throat, rich but not overwhelming and did not cause me to be thirsty. It was like drinking cold Teh Tarik.

Horlicks: The taste was quite powdery and drying on the throat again. If the ice cream was more creamy rather than powdery and perhaps slightly less sweet, it would have been better.

Khaula Latte: The taste was coffee, not exactly Khuala, since Khuala should have gave an alcoholic taste. This was like Rum and Raisin ice cream with the Rum not tasting like how it should be.

Oh, as a sidenote, I have also tried MacFlurry Green tea today as well. It tasted quite good, without any bitterness unlike that I tried at Shokudou.

A night out at Geylang with friends

We started off with Geylang claypot rice at 6pm. The claypot rice was not bad, but somehow it did not trigger the feelings I had when I ate claypot rice for the first time at Chinatown. Perhaps it was due to the short waiting time, or maybe the atmosphere? In any case, this claypot rice was more expensive than that at Chinatown, cost about $8 plus per person, including drinks.

The guys really had monstrous appetite, the claypot rice was unable to fulfill their hunger and hence the journey continued.



The next stop was Yonghe eating house. Jon had you tiao and cold soybean milk, whereas the other two guys ( Jia Hao and my Dear dear ) had 酥饼 or toasted bun which they displayed. My Dear dear thought the toasted bun was like those which accompanied chilli crab, apparently it was not. I was still full from the claypot rice and hence did not order anything.

The menu itself was funny in a sense, it showed "cold soybean milk" below that another item was "sweet soybean milk", making us wondered if the cold was sweet as well. It turned out to be sweet.

Since the guys still wanted to eat some more food, the journey continued.



The last stop was Mongkok Dimsum. We took a long time in ordering our food and the waiter came and asked for our orders three times. When we finally decided what we wanted to order, it was hard to get the waiter to come and take the order :p.
The tri-coloured latte tea with palm sugar tasted great, super thick and fragrant. The shrimp dumplings were nice too, the shrimps inside were big and fresh. The scallop dumplings tasted average, not very impressive in my opinion and my Dear dear found the taste of spring onion to be overpowering. He don't like spring onion by the way. The fried dumplings were not bad, although I preferred 冯记 ones.
A picture of the menu with the respective prices for the dishes was taken for future reference.



The end of a long trip, with all the guys being full at last.

Sidetrack:

Along the way, we saw many people selling contraband cigarettes. I wondered how come the police never take any action and also how the cigarettes managed to pass the customs. The situation was quite bad that there were people holding plastic bags with the cigarettes inside at almost every even number street and at Geylang lor 14, there were times those 'hawkers' went out to the road to solicit the motorists.

Eating at Old Airport Road today and desserts at Heartland mall yesterday

Dom was eating Blanco's Kway chup, or something like that, with an extremely long queue. He commented the food was nice, but was not to my liking due to the piggy smell/taste. I had Marinara at Pasta Manna, another stall which I came to know of from this food blog entry. The Al fungi was sold out and hence I ordered this pasta that came with seafood and herb tomato sauce. We also had avocado shake from the stall beside the pasta stall, which can also be found in this food blog entry. Initially I wanted to try the mango with pomelo juice but there was no more stock, hence I stick to my old favourite: avocado shake.



My favourite dessert on par with ice-cream in my ranking of favorites: Snow ice, which I ate at Heartland mall in one of the above photos.

Happy Mother's Day @ Desire

Starting off with what my parents have for lunch, the Mother's Day special set at $50++ per pax,
each set consisted of the starter, the soup, the appetizer, the main course, the dessert and the coffee/tea. The starter was bread with butter, which I forgot to take photo of. There was a choice between olive bread and onion bread. My mother was quite funny, thinking the butter was cheese (that was what the rest of us thought so too :p) and tried a small piece, only to realize it was butter. The bread was served hot and the butter melted nicely into the bread.

The soup was some mango and chilli soup which I cannot remember the name and did not have a chance to try, but anyway, my parents liked the dish.

The appetizer was with some cheese, which my younger sister commented, tasting like the cream sauce in spaghetti.

The cod fishes in their sets were delectable, with crispy crusts, sweet scents of fish and a tantalizing taste. Both my mom and dad enjoyed very much.

Their desserts were ice cream with some tarts with chocolate inside. My mother noticed some gold powder on the tart.

The coffee in the picture was mine, my mother took tea and my dad took coffee. Since they looked about the same, I shall just put in one photo. The coffee has an aftertaste of almond in my opinion.



My appetizer, followed by my main course, my younger sister's main course and my elder sister's main course.

My appetizer was tuna and avocado. I thought was canned tuna, but it came as sashimi sort, a bit shocked? Nevertheless, the fish tasted soft, no fishy smell and gave a salty and creamy combination with the dressing and avocado.

My main course was cheese ravioli, which the cheese sauce tasted sweet but the smell was just too overpowering. All the while I eating the dish, I was thinking of my dessert :p. As for my sisters, they had chicken roulade and grilled ribeye respectively as shown in the pictures.



The desserts for my sisters and myself. My sisters ordered the same dessert 'banana flambe' and I ordered coffee tiramisu. They said theirs tasted superb. I liked tiramisu and the standard of this tiramisu was still acceptable, even though not the most impressionable one I have tasted. The crusts at the side tasted a bit like kinder brueno in my opinion.

Overall, the service was great and the food, depending on the tastes and what you ordered, most tasted quite nice. I shall end off with "Happy Mother's Day."