Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Ilovemother.net

Read about this cool website (http://ilovemother.net) from the 'Food & Travel' Magazine.

Apparently, this website provides recipes and food preparations services. So it simply means you get the fun part of cooking and the hard work of marketing, slicing, dicing, peeing and so all is all done by them!! What a interesting business idea they have!!

I love cooking! but the preparation part always kill me! So i think this website is sure gonna make money from those busy-yet-love-to-cook pple!

However, dun think I will venture it out anytime soon. Maybe, after i become somebody's mrs. ha!

Now all i need is a service that does the cleaning up! the maid? ...no maid! damnz!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Peranakan Inn @ Katong & our 'fun & feast' day

Peranakan Inn

Had to run some errands at Katong after work on Friday. BC decided to bring me to this Peranakan place for peranakan food which he been to recently. I have stayed in the east for ages and have never been to the Peranakan Inn. Its the kind of place I know its always there but never bother to try. Ha!

The place was pretty empty when we arrived. I believe they run a slow steady business. The place looks like those old red house kind of cake shop with those big round marble tables and wooden chairs, except its air-conditioned.

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We ordered a few pretty standard dishes....

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Ngoh Hiang... taste was pretty standard.... but abit overpriced. $4.50 for like 4 pieces.

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Otah... so-so...

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Itek Tim! This is like my favourite soup which i only get to drink it once a year (during CNY).
I had high expectation for this! BUt... the taste is not what I expected it to be. It tasted abit like bak kut teh kiam chay soup combined. Maybe this is how true authentic peranakan salted veg duck soup? not very sure. I still feel abit different from what i drink at other peranakan restaurents before. I guess the one that suits me the best is still the one mum makes.

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Ok.. the fish was pretty good! Really crispy! My only complain.. not spicy enuff! hehe!

I guess its a place I wun be coming back soon. Just doesnt suit me i guess. But i do think its a good place for tourists to visit.

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Fun & Feast Sat

Having a long weekend means we can enjoy our saturday to the fullest without the nagging thot of "gawd.. its sunday tomorrow which means monday is coming!!"

We decided to make chinese dumplings on this day! We had some unforgettable dumplings from some neighbour from china. Just wanted to try it out ourselves. BC even suggested that we have a steamboat then we can have dumplings in our steamboat! wee! I love steamboats!

Manage to found a couple of recipes online. Wun be posting it here cause we thot the recipe isnt that good.

Firstly... the recipe stated 500g of flour with 100ml of water to make a dough. My goodness! i nearly died from kneading the dough cause they cant stop crumbling!! which kinda makes sense since there werent enuff water. We decided to add water as much as it takes to make the dough. think we used about 250ml of water in the end.

I was in charge of the dough. BC was in charge of the filling.

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My dough...after more than haf an hour of kneading in the hot kitchen! I perspired like mad and had to ask BC to help wipe my perspiration. Kinda like doctors in the surgery room! haha! No choice else my dough will have "extra ingredients".

The food expert BC prepared the meat filling. He is so much better at this than me..
of course i left him in charge of the filling.

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We wrapped one dumpling and cooked it. the filling wasnt fantastic. so we added egg, sesame oil and chives. Tasted better but still not like those made by the china granny. I guess we gotta get the recipe from her instead next time.

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our dumplings!! Curry puff looking kind was made by BC.. keke!! Such hard work to roll the dough and then fold the dumplings...

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BC stuffed some of his meat fillings into little tao pok pockets! like yong tau fu!

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we made mee hoon kuay from our leftover doughs! haha! 'Q Q' ok!

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BC's special made 'sa ca jiang' for steamboat. His sis and i love his sauce for steamboat!!! its not steamboat without his special sauce!

Our other steamboat ingredients....

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Jus had a wonderful time at my friend's place... her chicken curry was good! Nice to sit around with friend and have a good luff at a crappy movie.

I love long weekends~ So sad.. its gonna be over soon.... boohoo! N the next one will not be here for a very long time...

Urulu @ Duxton Hill

Needed a place for a little celebration... asked several friend for place recommendation... a friend suggested a place he read from today's paper suggesting places with HSBC discounts. Urulu was having a 1-for-1 discount for it set meals and the newspaer recommended the place for its wondrous steaks.

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It was pretty hard to get a carpak at duxton hill. So little lots but so many pubs and restaurent at the area. Thank goodness we were there early. We waited for haf an hour till we got a lot. For those willing to spare with $5, they have valet parking there.

The restaurent looks pretty small from the main entrance but they seem to have a bigger place where u can enter from the back of the restaurent. Din get to explore it cause we were sitting pretty near the entrance.

The 1 for 1 promotion is really worth it. But there were limited choices for the set dinners. We were kinda in the mood for steaks so we decided to forgo the 1 for 1 promotion. How wasteful are we?

They had wagyu beef but they cost like around $100 for like 200g of wagyu beef. We are on a tight string so we opted out.

This was what we had...
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Complimentary cheese bun.. cheesy-ly good!

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A mushroom soup to share. Abit too creamy for my taste. but still quite quality soup.

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My sirloin. Each main comes with 2 side dishes. I took wild mushrooms and truffle mashed potatoes. Love the mash. At first thot it looks pathetic but i understand why. Cause its really creamy.. too much of it makes one kinda sick. the portion was just nice then. The wild mushrooms really contains all sorts of wild mushrooms. Its only then i realise i dun love ALL kind of mushrooms.. ate 1 a bit too bitter, and another made me kinda sick. not sure if its the way they cooked it or the mushroom itself.

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My triple mustard sauce for my steak! Mmm!! goes well with the steak! but i still cannot differentiate the mustards! some sort of foodie am i...

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Tried to take a juicy delicious sauce but because of bad lightning and shaking hand. Failed! Must b too eager to attack on my steak! Not bad. Quite tender and juicy. Love it with the mustard!

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BC had a ribeye with wine sauce which i thot made his steak pretty yummy! He took wild mushrooms and wedges as sides he really loved the wedges. they were really crispy on the outside and soft on the inside kind.

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And to end the night, a little chocolate cake to sweeten our tooth! Ohh.. it was really good!! love it!!!! So creamy kinda like ice cream! Oh! I went to TCC recently.. I saw that they have a similar cake i think! but its cut into strips and served with berries too! wonder if its the same. hees!

Overall, think the food was pretty good but there's nothing to make us feel like going back another time. Unless we are going back for its 1-for-1 promotion - quality food at a good price then. We did have a discout though. 15% from HSBC. So the night end pretty well for us too i guess..

Thanks BC for the treat once again!

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