Food Adventures!

Ham & Cheese Croissant. The Ham slice is thicker than usual.

Chocolate Chip Croissant

Blueberry Cheese Tart

Charcoal bun

One fine Saturday morning, we decided to make our way to Little India for some lovely croissants. Mirabelle makes one of the best croissants I have ever eaten in my entire life. Unless I have a better one, I think I would go all the way for their croissants. First time we had a plain one, second time we had a chocolate chip one, and third time we finally had the ham and cheese. Votes for ham and cheese and the plain ones. The charcoal bun with custard and the blueberry cheese tart is ok.

Had a hot steaming bowl of an ordinary looking prawn noodles. After sipping the hot soup, I proceeded to eat the kway tiao. Excellent. It tastes much better than it looks. Peppery and robust, we sipped the life out of the bowl until it is dry. *snigger*

Prawn noodle

Had an onion masala thosai at Sri Kamala's with some teh tarik before heading down to Crys' place for some cheesecake baking and try her lovely Indian dishes.

Thosai

Teh Tarik!

My first attempt at blueberry cheesecake baking

The dishes were ready. So was my tummy!

Pumpkin Prawn

Lady's Finger

Masala Chicken

Free Ice Cream anyone?

Got a free treat whilst strolling down Orchard Road. Woohoo!

Hatched & Mortons

It was a good cause for celebration! With some happy thoughts in mind, we trudged on to Hatched located at Evans Lodge. I must say it was a good start as we strolled and enjoyed the quiet, atmospheric surroundings. Almost like a nature walk.

We started with a more unusual offering of beer which proved to be stronger than the usual ones. In a good way of course. In a place that serves brunch, I could not resist ordering a cappuccino with an extra shot.

Burly Benedict

Spoilt for choices, we went ahead with Burly Bendict and Le Rossini as intended. One thing I noticed was the lack of salt/seasoning they had for their sides of sauteed potatoes and caramelised onions. It was rendered tasteless. Same goes for the thin slice of corned "wagyu" beef for the Burly Benedict. Perhaps it explains why salt and pepper are needed in this instance.

Le Rossini

The foie gras looked thick but it could do more with a better pan fry technique to make it more crisp and less chewy. I am guessing it might be duck liver. Truffle oil definitely helped in this dish. It is quite enjoyable to eat the toasted ciabatta with scrambled eggs, foie gras, drizzled with truffle oil. The idea for this place is good but perhaps they should select more quality ingredients to capture the attention of curious diners.

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Mortons Steakhouse! What can I say? It was excellent! Definitely the best place for steak. Personalised services and menu apart, the food was of a totally different league of its own.

Onion Loaf

The onion loaf is the size of my head. It is that big. Lighting here proved to be difficult for me to take pictures so excuse the quality.

Lobster bisque

This has got to be the most umami bisque that I have complete with fresh lobster meat.

Crabcake

Best of the best. No words could describe this.

Sauteed spinach and button mushrooms

I swear I could eat this everyday.

Steak

I think it was a tenderloin. The best cut and taste I have ever eaten.

Grand Marnier Souffle

The texture of the souffle is so soft and fluffy I could have finished the giant portion by myself.

*Burp* It's been a great day. Absolutely lovely. Makes me wanna stretch both arms in the air and yelp a triumphant "Yatta!"

Would you eat this? KFC's Quadruple

Source: Insanewiches

Following up on my previous post on crazy, artery clogging eats, I found this simply intriguing. This is something found in KFC in the States but they are testing out the response. Using the chicken patty as a bread replacement is actually not unheard of but what attracted me in this picture was the actual bacon being used. The last I've heard about beef patties having the same concept and using a fork to eat this messy meal.

So long burger buns. R.I.P.

Banana Cake Again!

I baked them the week before the last. I baked them again last week. 2 consecutive weeks of banana cake baking. There is a slight difference hence this post.

So following last week's recipe, instead of 3 bananas, I made it with 4 bananas with no changes being made to the rest of the ingredients. 2 bananas for mashing into the cake batter and the other two were sliced and placed in between and on top of the cake. As you can see, this cake looked more browned.

The insides of the cake does not look like a banana cake at this point as there were no black speckles, aka seeds of banana, and the texture is like a sponge cake with sliced bananas. They were so shy that they only appeared the following morning.

Rejoice! It is a banana cake after all. They can be eaten warm or cold and tastes best on the 2nd day after and I like this one better than the previous one.

Foods that I eat at work

Portobello, tomatoes, french beans and couscous

Asparagus, button mushrooms, tomatoes, couscous

Pumpkins, asparagus, mushrooms, tomatoes and bread rolls

Oatmeal with cashews and maple syrup

Varieties for my lunches at work and no I am not really a vegetarian. :o)

Dessert at Kyoto Sabo AJITEI 京都茶房味亭 (Takashimaya)

I always look at the displays for their desserts and finally gotten one myself. This is their green tea parfait. I like this dessert quite a bit. I noted some bacon dish that they kept serving up to other diners. I could try that the next time.

I have been eating...

...mostly mushrooms. Swiss brown, white buttons, portobello and even canned ones. I bought asparagus, broccoli, eggplant and tried to make my packed lunches as healthy and interesting as possible. Next week I'm going to get more avocadoes, lettuce and make more sandwiches as I just bought a can of herring in brine.

Porta Porta - Stanley Street

You could miss this place if you turned into the wrong street.

Wanting to do an alfresco this time round seemed almost an impossible task as we were bombed by the loud drills coming from a construction site opposite, coercing us to retreat back in the restaurant. We saw another table do the same before deciding to follow suit. This was my second time returning this branch and I must say that my tummy and I were the most happy when the meal ended.

The bread and the olive tapenade (i guess) did just the thing that they were supposed to do. Fill our tummies and boosted our appetite for what's going to follow next.

Calamari Fritti (above) & Fish Soup (Right)

Calamari seemed like a good choice because we had a tasting of it the last time. It came with 2 additional prawns. This has got to be the thinnest battered calamari. No kidding. The batter is just a mere thin case of crispy batter and this batter has got to be the tastiest of all of those (calamari fritti) that I have tasted. Not that I tried a lot. The tentacles were just pure pleasure as I sinked in my teeth in one of those babies. This made me smiled a lot and I can't wait for more food to come. Fish soup was good but in a way, it didn't come across as full bodied as the one I had at the Changi branch. Savoury and not overwhelmed by the tomatoes, this was one heck of a fish soup.

Finally, the pasta! The prawn penne with cream tomato sauce did it for me. Although it was a tad al dente, the cream sauce and the fresh prawns were so good that I did not think about anything else (except the calamari).

Stuffed tortellini with beef sauce.

The assumption that it would be a tomato based pasta proved to be correct except that it was not how I had envisioned it to be. There were plenty of minced beef and a smidgen of tomato sauce. I think the tortellinis was stuffed with cheese. I would come back for this dish too.

Although their tiramisu was not the best, I like them because it is very simple and palatable. Not too fanciful and something sweet to end the wonderful dinner is always a plus.

I would come back again for 2 main reasons. One is for the food. The other is of course the ever charming Italian server/owner who speaks like a Singaporean. ;oP

What I had for lunches...

Aloha! It has been sometime for a real post for what I had eaten for lunch. I forgot to take pictures for some of them and I promise to do a real documentation of what I am eating in future. These are quite random pictures.

What you didn't see:

• coffee and sugarless soybean milk (Unisoy)
• instant oatmeal porridge
• things like miso soup from those miso paste sachets I got from Isetan Scotts.
• tofu with french beans and tomato miso soup
• salmon belly sashimi with scallions, lemon juice and XO sauce
• baked fat free Koka instant noodles with XO sauce (thanks a lot Alice!) and squeeze of lemon
• hard boiled egg with tomato sandwiches
• Fruits like apples, papaya, watermelon

Mini portobellos with scallions and XO sauce.

These were excellent. The XO sauce has lots of scallops which helped in the flavouring and olive oil as the healthy fat in my diet did help in making the salad tasty. This warm mushroom salad is light on the palate and will definitely make you want to eat more.

Tuna salad with Couscous and sides of tomato with scallions and XO sauce

For the tuna, I had chopped up some red onions and mixed some pepper. The tomatoes were firm and juicy. Paired with couscous and tuna salad...mmm...my mouth waters...

Tuna, yogurt & chives with couscous

After you mix them up...

Yes...repeated ingredients are being used here but this was the best that I could manage. I used Greek yogurt here. A note to myself: next time use less chives. You can top this up with cashew nuts and it will be a filling and healthy lunch.

Cashew nuts and lemon for my water

These are my afternoon snacks. Do you know that a cut up lemon is a natural way of deodorising your space? Yes...my office space smells divine...

Until next time....

Mini crackers with cream cheese

These are really mini...but they look cute! Because of the cuteness, I wouldn't mind eating them even though the cheese cream tastes sweetish and fake. Lol. ;oP

and counting down...

...to a cleaner diet for the next 3 months. Good luck to me! I must stay committed because it is only 3 months. Come August, I shall probably resume my normal eating ways...Feel free to give me "warnings". Lol...Universe...give me the strength to resist hamburgers and fries!!!!! And others!!!!

PS: Crys, I shall try my best ok?

Bella Pizza at Robertson Quay

What a pleasant discovery! I gave myself a pat on the back after having dinner here and I thought to myself that I will be back. I will not order the dessert here though.

The starter of mozzarella wrapped with parma ham was a decent put together dish although I hoped that the cheese could be more chilled. It tasted like how it looked. Salty, slightly creamy tasting with refreshing tomatoes.

The star of the dinner was the pasta. Fettucine with Italian sausage and truffles and a touch of cream. It definitely was not a touch of cream here but I do not mind the sauce at all. The sausage was awesome. The black truffles provided a slight nuttish texture and taste to the pasta. One can only hope for more sausages and truffles.

I could not remember which pizza did we order but I think it was suppose to have gorgonzola in it. Although the lack of it made me a little disappointed, the pizza was sufficiently well spread with the other cheese and ham. The crust itself was easy to the bite and I felt that a beer would be great now.

Dessert: Crepes with marscarpone, nutella and bananas did not impress me at all as the crepes had a greasy after taste.