Culinary Adventures: Awfully Chocolate Cupcakes

I made these using the Awfully Chocolate cake recipe I found online but alas they didn't turn out that great as cupcakes. But here are the pictures anyway.

Culinary Adventures: Potato Korokke

Wow, can't believe it's almost the end of October already! Time really flies. Christmas is just about 2 months away.

I made potato croquettes today for the family dinner. These little gems are really easy to make yet are a definite crowd-pleaser. I originally intended to make them using minced pork and beef but realised I didn't have any in the fridge. I decided to improvise a bit using luncheon meat instead. Corned beef would be another possible substitute.

Here's the recipe for it.

Ingredients:
About 500g of potatoes
Half a can of luncheon meat/corned beef (chopped into smaller pieces)
...1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 large white onion (chopped)
A small piece of butter(about the amount you would use for spreading on a piece of bread)
About 1 litre of boiled water

For the coating:
About 4 tbsp plain flour
2 eggs
Breadcrumbs

Cooking and preparation time: About 45 mins to 1 hr

How to cook:
Peel the skin off the potatoes. Put them in a pot and then pour the boiling water over. Let it boil for about 15 minutes till the potatoes are soft. Drain all the hot water off and leave the potatoes in the pot. Using a fork(or a masher if you have one), mash the potatoes up.

Prepare a pan to fry the other stuff. Add about a spoonful of oil. Add the chopped onions and fry for about 5 minutes. Then add the luncheon meat or corned beef and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Add pepper to taste. Remove and stir into mashed potato. Mash the ingredients together again. Add salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Taste the mixture first before rolling them into balls in case you need to add more seasoning.

Crack the egg and beat into eggwash. Roll the potato mix into balls or oval shapes if you like. Coat in flour, then dip in eggwash and finally in the breadcrumbs.


Heat up a wok of oil enough to cover up to at least halfway of the croquettes when they fry. When the oil is hot enough, slowly slide the croquettes into the wok to prevent them from splashing.


Using a spider frying ladle, slowly turn the balls over only when they are about medium brown in colour.

When they are evenly golden brown, scoop them up and allow the excess oil to drip off on paper towels. Ta-dah!

Four Seasons Restaurant @ Chinatown, London

Here's a second post of the much-loved roasted fowl, this time round in London. I guess I don't have to make too much of an introduction to this place since it's almost an institution by itself. I met up with an ex uni mate after watching Avenue Q last Friday at the Wyndham Theatre nearby and had dinner at the Chinatown branch. We waited a good 25 minutes before they finally let us in.


Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the dish. In short, it was a most marvellously delicious piece of fowl. It's quite different from the roast duck in Singapore as the duck was served in a platter of sauce and the skin looked deceivingly braised rather than crispy. Needless to say, the layer of fat below the skin was a part of its magical taste.

I will be back here again the next time I'm in London.

Address:
12 Gerrard Street, London, W1D 5PR

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 3.5 porkchops
Food: 4.25 porkchops
Ambience: 3.25 porkchops

Thais Restaurant Songkhla @ Den Haag

I was overseas with a colleague two weeks back to attend a conference in Amsterdam and we were just lamenting about the dearth of decent Chinese food(not to mention his continuous whining about missing out on his laksa and char kway teow) in the city. We went to a restaurant that was supposedly one of the better ones in Chinatown and there was no doubt about its popularity when we saw the queue....but alas, the food just didn't seem to live up to our expectations. One thing I've noticed about Asian food in the Netherlands, they seem to be rather liberal with salt in their food.

This post is about a little restaurant I chanced upon whilst I was wandering around in Den Haag (also know as The Hague) the day after the conference. Den Haag if you must know, is the financial district of The Netherlands. After spending 7 days in Amsterdam, I'll have to admit that it was a nicer place to hang out for the day.

The restaurant is located in a side street off Den Haag's Chinatown. The prices were a bit steep as I've come across cheaper alternatives in Amsterdam but I guess this one looks like a slightly posher restaurant. The overall feel of the eatery felt pretty rustic.

Before my main dish came, I was served free keropok with a sweet and sour thai chilli sauce. Check out the amount of keropok they gave!


My main dish was stir-fried basil pork with baby corn, carrots and snow peas and it came with a huge pot of rice that probably could have fed two persons. After the last few days of decent Asian food deprivation, I have to say this was rather tasty(and abit salty once again), though of course nothing as close to the Thai food we're accustomed to back here in Southeast Asia.

But as they say, when in Dutchland, eat as the Dutch do. :P


It was a rather tranquil afternoon having my late lunch whilst looking out of the window into the street below.


And you know the eatery must be a hit with the locals cos the policeman came to do a takeaway as well. Ha.


Cost = Around 19 euros

Address:
Gedempte Burgwal 2F
2512 BT Den Haag

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 4 porkchops
Food: 3.5 porkchops
Ambience: 3.75 porkchops

Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck

We celebrated JP's birthday a few weeks ago at the above-mentioned restaurant. It was my 2nd round of peking duck as I had the same dish 2 weeks earlier with another group of friends at the Marina Bay Sands location and honestly, it kind of blew me away. And since JP wanted to dine at Imperial Treasure, I suggested having the peking duck since none of them had tried it before. Frankly, it didn't really make any sense travelling to the MBS one which was rather inconvenient by public transport (or else pay $15 or more for parking for a couple of hours!). We found out there was another branch at Paragon selling the same dish(which was slightly cheaper as well since the location wasn't as snazzy as the MBS) hence I booked a table for 4 that night.

One annoying thing about Imperial Treasure is that when you make a booking, do be prepared to be told by their staff that you'll have to evacuate your table by a certain time as they are expecting another group of diners to take over the later slot. Well...granted that their business is extremely busy every single time I visit, I suppose you can't really blame them for doing so. But I guess a better way of approaching it would've been to serve the food faster after a customer's order and then drop hints about settling the bill after they're done with their meals.

Ah well.

Probably one of the most exciting parts about having Peking Duck is watching the chef skilfully carve up the duck in front of you. There is nothing quite as fascinating(provided you're not from the medical profession) in Chinese cuisine as this (save for drunken prawns but if you ask me, that's almost as cruel as force-feeding a goose to get foie gras) as the chef places each glistening and succulent-looking piece of meat on a complementing shiny white plate.

So here's our chef for the night doing his job.


And here's a photo of the finished product. Ta-dah!


What's interesting about Imperial Treasure is that they also provide you with some sugar to go with the duck. Personally I still prefer the traditional way of eating it which is with sweet sauce and cucumber rolled in the crepe.

But the duck was not all we had for dinner that night of course. The stir fried spinach with mushrooms and tofu was absolutely delicious too. It was cooked in a thick oyster-sauce sort of gravy and the tofu was a bit crispy on the outside yet moist and flavourful when you bit into one.


We also had a double-boiled winter melon soup with crab. The crab tasted pretty fresh and succulent. Guess it must have been simmered in the soup for quite awhile.


For $10 more, we had the rest of our skinned duck sliced up and cooked with "sang meen"(a skinny yellow crispy noodle). I am usually quite stuffed after a heavy meal like this but this was actually pretty good enough for me to finish.


Of course, no meal is complete without our favourite mango sago dessert with pomelo pulp. Priced at $5 each, it was a bit steep for the size of the bowl we were served in though.


JP had the mango pudding which in my opinion tasted pretty normal next to the mango sago(which really is quite the dessert benchmark of any decent Cantonese restaurant).



For the serious Cantonese cuisine foodie, Imperial Treasure is a must-go if you've not been there before. Even if you're not game for peking duck, their lunchtime dim sum is also very good.

Which reminds me. I better start on my currently non-existent exercise regime....SOON!

Cost per pax(after UOB card discount) = around $40+

Address:
290 Orchard Road #05-42/45 The Paragon

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 4 porkchops
Food: 4.5 porkchops
Ambience: 4 porkchops

Dinner at The Square @ Novotel Clarke Quay

Dinner 4 nights ago with the MGS schoolmates was at The Square, a cafe located inside Novotel Clarke Quay Hotel near their hotel reception area. I've been there before for a buffet last year with the company and thought the food was mediocre for a hotel but one of the friends had a 50% voucher hence we decided we might as well use it there. We initially thought that they would serve local fare on top of Western food like most of the other hotels in town hence we were surprised to see the rather limited choice of Western dishes in their a la carte menu.

Three of us had the tomato soup with basil whilst JL had the butternut squash with crabmeat soup. The tomato soup was pretty tasty but a bit on the salty side... though the portion was huge. We had a bit of a problem finishing it granted that there was still the main course to be served.


JL's butternut soup was pretty good too according to her. There was a distinct taste of blended crabmeat and it had a little bit of a strong herb taste.


Our main courses then came shortly after they took away our soups. Two of my friends had the cod fish, I had the ribeye steak whilst JL had the salmon. Food was pretty good, though the ribeye was a bit on the tough side(it was supposed to be cooked medium-well) but nevertheless quite tasty with the pepper sauce. The frites were the saving grace...they tasted like homecooked potatoes and were thick-cut. Really delicious!

Ribeye Steak with Fries and Salad

Salmon Steak with Carrots and Asparagus

Grilled Cod Fish Fillet With Tomato Dressing

We liked the overall ambience of the place...JP commented that the palm trees outside the cafe made it look like LA! But the wait staff seemed to be rather inexperienced...the guy didn't seem to understand us at all when we asked for the bill until like after 5-6 tries and I was on the verge of saying it to him in Mandarin before he finally got the idea. The waitresses also didn't seem too friendly when we presented them with the 50% voucher at the door and behaved as if we were here to get a free meal out of them...to clarify, the voucher was JL's as she had the hotel membership card.

I guess the place is nice to chill if you're looking for a quiet afternoon chat with friends.

Address:
177A River Valley Road Level 7

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 3 porkchops
Food: 3.25 porkchops
Ambience: 4 porkchops

Lunch @ Song of the Prince Korean Food

A wee bit tired today so I'll try to keep this as short as possible. Photos in this set were taken with the iPhone.

Lunch today with the colleague was at our weekly favourite haunt, Song of the Prince Korean Food located in a corner of Bukit Merah Central. Haha I know what you're thinking... the name sounds kinda cringey and cheesy(and I think there's some K-drama by the same name as well). It's manned by a couple of China PRs, but boy, is the food really good for its price(that is, if you fancy Korean food)! Prices range from around $4.50-6.50 and it's a lot tastier than some of the stuff passing off as pseudo-Korean cuisine at some food courts.

My usual order is the beef bibimbap(mixed rice hot stone bowl) but I decided to order my 2nd favourite item on the menu today, the kimchi ramen with beef. It was really tasty but too spicy when I had it last week so I asked them to reduce the spiciness this time round. Alas, it seemed that part of the tastiness had disappeared along with it. What I like about it though is that it actually has a richer taste than some hawker places...you know how it tastes like the cook made it by simply throwing a packet of "Shin" korean noodles with its msg seasoning into a pot! But I guess I'll have my beef bibimbap again the next time round.


The colleague had the chicken bibimbap today. Just a short description about what I love about their bibimbap...there's just enough Korean chilli sauce to go with it and the rice seems to be "burnt" just right when all the ingredients are mixed together. All of their food come with chilli anchovies and kimchi as side dishes(which aren't fantastic but edible enough...I guess you can't expect too much for what you pay!)


Other items on the menu are your usual Korean "hawker" standards, such as chicken/pork/beef bulgogi with rice, Saba fish with rice and soup, kimchi soup, yuk-gae-jang(spicy beef soup), etc. I've seen quite a lot of people order the ramen with fried chicken cutlet so I guess that's one of their popular items as well.

Looks like it's going to continue to be a weekly haunt for the both of us for quite awhile. :)

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 3 porkchops
Food: 4 porkchops
Ambience: 3 porkchops

Nam Kee Chicken Rice @ Upper Thomson Road

Dinner with the folks today was at Nam Kee Chicken Rice in the neighbourhood. The owners actually live on my street and bought the shophouse many many years ago. Unfortunately, the uncle who used to chop the chickens behind the counter passed away recently. The shop is now managed by his wife. The restaurant itself is almost an institution dating back to at least 30 years. The decor is simple, complete with brown booth seats and an old-fashioned cash collection counter, almost transporting one back to the 70s era. There probably aren't many eateries like these around nowadays that have not undergone a complete facelift to meet with the times. Another shop that brings to mind is Hwa Nam Restaurant further down the road, as well as Ampang Yong Tau Foo at Joo Chiat.

But I digress.....

Other than serving Hainanese chicken rice, they also specialize in a list of tze char items, of which sambal kangkong is an all-time favourite amongst many of their patrons. The restaurant is usually packed on weekends and if you order after 7.30pm, there is a likelihood that they've already run out of the dish.

Btw, the photos in this set were taken with my new toy, the Canon S95. Some of the colours may look a bit odd as I'm still trying to figure my way around the different functions. :P

I'm not a huge chicken rice fan nor connoisseur myself, but one thing I have to admit is that the secret to a great chicken rice lies in its chilli mix and of course, the rice itself. Nam Kee for me, has got this quite down pat. There's nothing more disappointing than a substandard chilli mix, or one that has gone sourish from being kept for too long. Nam Kee in this aspect at least, has never failed its customers(or at least during the times I've patronised them!). What I like about Nam Kee is that they also provide a bowl of pure unadulterated chicken soup(used from cooking chickens no less) garnished with spring onions, unlike the soups that some other chicken rice places serve. You can't get any more traditionally Hainanese than this!

Today's meal was rather average on the whole, with the chicken tasting less tender than usual. It felt like the standard had gone down a bit. Here's a photo of their Hainanese white chicken.


The sambal kangkong tasted very good as usual. Some places cook it really greasy but Nam Kee manages to keep the grease level a bit lower than the rest. There's also something in the belachan and hei-bee(dried shrimps) that they use that seems to give the dish an edge over its tze char competitors.



The sweet and sour pork(gu lo yok) was quite crispy soaked in the sauce but seemed to lack a certain oomph when you bit into one. Perhaps there wasn't enough fats in the pork to lend it extra body, or perhaps there wasn't enough pre-marination before deep frying? The cucumbers looked a bit odd being part of the dish as well.

Photo was taken after several pieces had been pinched by the family members.


We also had the hei zoh(hokkien fried prawn and pork roll) which was so-so as well. It was served with a sweet black sauce.


Another dish that we had today was the yam ring with fried cashew nuts, celery and peppers. The yam ring itself was quite crispy but I felt the dish was also about average on the overall...or maybe I was just too stuffed on too much oily food earlier already haha!


Don't expect great service as it's run like your typical mom-and-pop shop but the helpers come around fast enough when you need to take an order. On the overall, it's not superb tze char cuisine but good enough for most. If you're looking for a no-frills cosy family meal on a weekend night around the neighbourhood, why not check out Nam Kee one day?

Address:
201 Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574343

Rating (out of 5):
Service: 3 porkchops
Food: 3.5 porkchops
Ambience: 3 porkchops

Culinary Adventures: Cha Gio

Ok folks, we're on a roll today. This post is about making cha gio aka Vietnamese fried spring rolls.

Here's a tip: I've tried using the traditional rice paper skin for fresh spring rolls to wrap these but they just don't turn out as good because the skin ends up really soggy after frying. You should really be using the "net spring roll skin" which looks quite different from the rice paper skin. Since I don't have a picture of it on hand, I guess the best way to describe it is that it looks kinda like a thickly condensed spiderweb. It's not commonly available here in the supermarkets though, but you can find it at Meidi-ya Supermarket Liang Court(yes I know, strange that a Japanese supermarket actually has it!).

So here's the recipe for cha gio adapted from a Vietnamese cookbook. I'm not sure where the book went recently but this should be it. The quantity may vary a little, but if you ask any experienced cook, cooking's all about estimation!

Cha Gio (Makes about 8-10 medium sized springrolls)
Ingredients:
200g prawns, deshelled and deveined
200g minced pork
1 small carrot, sliced thinly
A handful of thin rice vermicelli (tanghoon), soaked in hot water for 2 minutes
1 egg white

Seasoning:
1.5 tsp sugar
1.5 tsp sesame oil
1.5-2 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
A dash of salt
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp of shaoxing wine or mirin

Sweet and Sour Sauce(to accompany the cha gio as a dip):
1 tbsp sugar
2-3 limes
2 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
Sliced chilli
1 tbsp water

For the first step, mash the prawns and pork together into a paste. Mix in the egg white. It should look like this.


Add in all the seasoning ingredients, including the garlic. Mix well, then add in the thinly sliced carrots and vermicelli.

Marinade it all up properly, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour to let the flavours seep into the meat.

Handling the net spring roll skin can be a bit tricky. You need to prepare a fairly large bowl with some shallow water, place the skin briefly in the water, and then quickly lay it on a towel on top of a board. Take about 2 tablespoons of the meat mix and place it in a longish shape in the middle of the roll, then roll it and wrap it up accordingly. Sometimes, the skin breaks if you take too long to do it or when you dip it in too much water. You can wrap it in an additional another layer of skin in this case.

Heat up a pan of oil to deep fry the rolls. When the oil is ready(you can test this by placing a chopstick into the oil, there should be bubbles forming around it), place them one by one into the oil over medium-low heat and fry till golden brown and crispy. This should take about 8-10 minutes or so. If your rolls are too big, you can cut them into smaller portions but make sure they are cooked through thoroughly! They should look like this when they're done.


To make the accompanying sweet and sour sauce, simply mix it all up together and squeeze the lime juice into the seasoning. The tangy sauce is really what brings out the taste in the spring rolls. Alternatively, the spring rolls also go well with commercial Thai sweet and sour chilli sauce. You can find these sauces at the supermarket located in Golden Mile complex.

And that's all for today. Till next time!

Dinner at Bel Mondo

Well it's been a bit of a hiatus. For the 3 readers out there(you know who you are), sorry for the long silence. It's been a bit busy for me at work recently plus my music commitments but I'm back here again with the next food post.

So I was at Bel Mondo a few weeks back with a couple of friends to celebrate SL's birthday. It's the third time I'm visiting the restaurant at Millenia Walk, which I guess sorta means I was pretty satisfied with the previous meals I've had there. Sadly, this time was a bit of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, service is good at the place, and it's a decent joint to hang out with friends on a Friday evening after work. I was over an hour late due to a last-minute errand and my poor friends were already waiting but they were kind enough to not order ahead of me. When I arrived, I was greeted by an angmoh guy(whom I assume was the owner). He must have been wondering why my friends were just sitting at his restaurant and drinking too much of his water without ordering any of his food. Har har. After settling down, we proceeded to order our food.

LY had a bowl of mushroom soup which I gather was probably made with a variety of mushrooms ground to a grainy texture in a blender, with cream stirred in and then recooked again. It was rather good. We also had the tomato bruschetta as a starter, which was pretty decent too(I guess you can't really go wrong with olive oil, garlic and herbs on bread) though the bread could've been crispier and more fragrant. If I recalled correctly, there were rocket leaves that went along with it as well. Here's a photo of it.

After our starters, the main courses came. SL had her favourite clam and white wine vongole pasta which I thought was probably the best amongst the three we ordered. The taste of white wine was almost about right, except that the dish tasted a little bit on the bland side.

I had my usual crab meat arrabiata with vodka linguini. It was only average this time round, which was a bit disappointing for me because I thought it was quite tasty the last time I had it. It felt like they merely combined some canned crab meat together with tomato sauce and it lacked kick in its taste despite the alcohol component in it. It didn't help that I was a small eater myself and the plate came in a huge portion....needless to say, I only ate about 1/2 of it. I hope the chef wasn't too offended when they took the plates away!



LY had the squid ink pasta(I've always wondered who was the ingenious chap who decided to experiment squishing the ink out from a squid and combining it with flour, eggs and water to make the dish which is now so popular all over the world. I guess he must've been Italian? Harhar.) It was a tad too salty but otherwise average as well.


After my third time dining at the restaurant, I have to say that it might take quite a bit for me to go back there again. Another minor grouse that I had was that the prices look suspiciously 20% higher than the last time I went 8 months ago. Service on the overall however, was good with attentive waitresses serving us.

I guess I should be exploring another Italian joint on another occasion.

Address:
9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-09/1o
Millenia Walk

Rating(out of 5):

Service: 3.5 porkchops
Food: 3 porkchops
Ambience: 3.5 porkchops

Caramelised Walnuts

Helloooooooos. Welcome to The Cat's Kitchen, a blog about random food I've sampled here and there, as well as the occasional venture on cooking experiments.

Since this is my first post, here's a snack discovery that I made recently. You know how sometimes you get those really yummy little appetizers at Chinese restaurants that you can't stop eating until the whole plate gets polished off? Sometimes you ask for seconds and the thing is, you can't seem to find them anywhere else. Well this is one of them and they're now available at the Crystal Jade bakery. They're irresistibly addictive and crunchy, with a generous dash of sesame seeds. No matter that it's laden with quite a bit of sugar...walnuts are supposed to be brain food, no?