The best dessert is found right in my kitchen

blueberry compote & cheesecake, by zzz.

Mummy Food

Mummy's food lifts the tired mind and body.
Thanks to mummy who prepared 2 nights of nutritious and yummy dinner for zzz and me.

Me also thinks we should be watching what we eat more.

Penang 2009

Didn't manage to get the picture of Penang Street's famous Chendol.
SO GOOD, especially in a hot weather!

Gurney Hawker No.11 Penang Laksa. i LOVE the prawn paste

Rojak from Gurney

Oyster porridge from....erm, somewhere....

Indian Mee Goreng!

Ba Kut Teh for breakfast before hitting the airport

Otak from Selamat (street?) i like the Muar one better :)

prawn noodles.....hohoho

one of the most expensive dish we had. The 6RM chay kway teow

kway teow teng. really Q noodles

Lor Bak and assorted fritters.
Abit like out neoh hiam, but theirs is made with lean meat

Ice-kachang. I like the way they prepare the red bean. not too sweet!

toasted cuttlefish with prawn paste dip

Thanks to Jenny, we had a really REALLY good time in Penang, mostly going from place to place for their great hawker fares.

Slurp.

piZZZa!

We were supposed to go zzz ah-ma's house on Sunday to "bao ba-zhang" (glutinous rice dumpling) but zzz got an army notification to report back to camp in mid-morning (so very BL loh!)

zzz ended up making a small tomato base with mozerella cheese and basil pizza for his lunch, since he already had the dough refrigerated a day before. Snitched a slice from him before going off to dous house. Quite yummy!

foods from zzz

Sardines in cream cheese linguine

peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache

Foods from zzz this weekend....heheheh....

More cupcakes

Cupcakes from zzz. Yummy! Thanks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Friends@Jelita, with friends, for A's belated BD lunch

And, we established, once again, that this we are one of each other's oldest friend around, having been friends for 'over' a decade (+1 year).

Cheers gals! to many more decades to go!

Live to Eat.....

A HUGE fish, which my mum bought for $60!!

Pork Ribs & Huai San Tang: good for complexion!

Hei Zho in black pepper

Scallops & Asparagus

Braised sea cucumbers & pig's trotters

Chinese always have a reason to celebrate and to eat.
It is a tradition of my mum's to cook up a really good meal during one of the 15 days of Chinese New Year...and this year, we had a meal that's SO good. i think we cleaned everything you can see here!

Christmas is an occassion to EAT!

It is a good occasion/excuse to meet up, pig out, gossip and take photos. The food was good (nice big turkey)plus our first time glazing a ham with orange and ginger marmalade turned out not so bad after all. :)

Roast Pork. Crunch Crunch

yum.

OK, i have to say this upfront. I never did really like roast pork (siew bak). In fact, i will always order char siew and almost never siew bak because those served at roast meat stalls here taste either too salty or lardy. A piece full of fats and hardly any trace of lean meat does no justice to our tastebuds.

But look at the gem above. This plate of heavenly siew bak was made by one of my colleague's very skillful mum for a small Christmas lunch. This, i must say is one of the best roast pork i have come across. One pop into the mouth, the sensation of the crunchy skin roasted to a perfect thickness, charred slightly, together with the lean meat juices and with the fatty meat which smooths the texture just hits you. The proportion of the skin, meat and fats is so right. We never felt too overwhelmed by the heaviness of the meat, never even felt the urge to stop taking just one more piece, until the whole plate was wiped clean.

So, when can we have the roast pork cooking lesson?

The lunch show-cased the potential Nigella Feasts in us. There were also other equally salivating dishes. The garlic rice, which according to my colleague was quite simple to make, just fry the garlic and add to cooked rice, was so fragrant. The Japanese versions i tried before cannot even stand in comparison.

Braised chicken wings, very juicy, very tender. The meat slides off the bones. And best of all, it was supposed to be done under 2 hours. Now thats really a domestic goddess in the making.

the whole deal. salads and all.

Brava(s)

stuffed with pumpkin goodness.....

Panna Cotta SO RICH & YUMMY. I love how the dark syrupy thing drenched the caramalised custard

Its impossible not to love this

The word brava reminded both of us of La Brava in Madrid. A small shop bursting with patrons even at midnight (no kidding. Madrid is a city that don't even blink-according to a certain guidebook), jostling to the counter for tapas like potatos with salsa sauce (savoury, spicy and even slight cheesy tasting) and 'pig's ears' (ok it doesn't sound all that appetising, but thinking of it now just makes me drool)

This brava, however, is quite the opposite in every ways.

No standing only tables, no exotic foods and no 2euros red wine.

Nonetheless, we had a good Italian meal here. Don't ask me why Italian now when we are going for the actual stuff in a few days time.

IT IS GOOD.

Pasta Brava Restaurant
11 Craig Road (opposite Tanjong Pagar MRT Station)

The Whole Earth Vegetarian Restaurant

Oatmeal tofu

Nonya Curry

Olive rice so good we had 2 servings

Or-ne (aka sweet yam paste)

Went for some seriously good vegetarian food yesterday at Geylang. Besides celebrating both Sis' and my birthdays which fall by a week's difference by date, Sis also wanted to try this as a possible caterer for Dous' one year old birthday buffet.

The simply decorated restaurant gives a vastly different vibe to the ouside Geylang neighbourhood. In addition to the usual Chinese vegetarian fare which Whole Earth dishes out in quality small portions, Whole Earth also serves Peranakan vegetarian food which included the yummy kuluak dish with tofu skins, nonya curry etc.

I especially like the yam paste, very fresh and smooth, probably also because the ingredients are vegetarian and hence lacked the presence of anything too unhealthy. Oh, and the pictures above are just a sampling of what we had, the other half were simply too yummy to wait!

Just a word of caution, this place is situated in the heart of Geylang and parking is pretty atrocious on weekends. Take the public transport (nearest station is Kallang) if you can.

The Whole Earth Vegetarian Restaurant

593 Geylang Rd (Lorong 31 towards 29)

YUMMY! When can i try all of the above?!

110708 - A FRIDAY

Distance: 8km
Time: 59 mins
Feeling: wondering why i am dragging my run today. AGAIN
Weather: Drizzle. Nice.

My recent runs have been fluctuating from 48mins-63mins. Makes me wonder if it really is the weather that has been affecting my pace or i simply need to push myself harder and concentrate on my speed (besides thinking about the 1001 things that have happened in the past 24 hrs - i have a tendency to think better during my runs.hmm)

Anyways. Just had a very full dim sum lunch at Shaw Towers' Ah Yat. Was a farewell lunch for a colleague serving her last day here. Not too many choices but selected dim sums going at 50% off on weekdays and Saturdays. 30% discounts on Sundays. Yummy.

I am now quite deservingly suffering the consequence of ordering/eating too much.

*burp*, excuse me. (^_^)

(Sweet & Spicy) Sesame Ikan Bilis

This is my weakness snack.
Spicy fried ikan bilis, coated with caramelized sugar.
The crunch exploding in the mouth, the sweet and spicy taste that blends so well.

When we were younger, my mum would make this in a large quantity for keeps as a porridge meal side dish and I even enjoyed this often while in Beijing. My mum would prepare a few containers as emergency comfort food. We never got to keep this for long though, OWL and myself are quite capable of finishing one container full of ikan bilis in a single night.

The tiny pieces are so addictive that i have been resisting to lay my hands on it (i obviously failed) ever since my colleague found this gem in Carrefour and in a very unwisely decision, left it sitting on my desk. It was tempting me!

Good thing that the price is steep to stop any over-indulgence. Carrefour sells this at $2.90/100g. Quite expensive on such a small amount to munch happily away.