Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very merry christmas and may all your wishes comes true!

OChre birthday dinner

Some time ago, we celebrated AK's birthday at OChre located at Orchard Central. It is my second time there and if you want a quiet and cozy dinner gathering, this is the place to go.

The restaurant very thoughtfully place a stand to mark the table as reserved. Very personalized.

We all decided on having their main courses. The ladies had a 3 course dinner while the guys had 4. But first, we had a bread basket to munch while waiting for AK to arrive.

Assorted bread basket containing very delicious breads.

The waiters are all very attentive and standby awaiting for our orders, if any. Our appetizers are served.

The guy's - Watermelon wrapped with parma ham.

The girl's - Angel hair pasta with scallops and caviar.

It was my first time trying caviar and it does taste a little disappointing. I was expecting more of a crunchy texture like the ebi roe. But it wasn't. 

The guy's second course.

The girl's main course. Pan fried fish fillet. 

Another shot of the fish fillet. 

The pan fried fish fillet tasted really home-cooked style. We all felt that this standard could be achieved at home but nevertheless it tasted great. I realised I forgotten to take photos of the guy's mains. They had steaks which they claimed was quite good.

Now, for desserts.

The girls had tiramesu...

..and the guys had some mango dessert with ice cream if I remembered correctly. The tiramesu fared better.

Last but not least, we ordered another cake for AK which was meant to be a surprise. We had much difficulty trying to secretly order the cake without AK noticing it. 

Happy Birthday!

Almond Meal Banana Muffins

I had some leftover ground almonds and hence decided to scout for a recipe that I can utilized the remaining ground almonds. 

Found a few recipes that looks not too bad but the ingredients needed doesn't fit perfectly. Its either too much ground almonds (which means I need to buy) or it needs too much other ingredients.

So yea, the recipe from Honest fare fits the bill best.

But however, the end result wasn't very satisfactory. Too dense for a muffin. Don't think I will try this again.

9oz sliced almonds + some extra for topping
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
3 oz sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 bananas (approximately 1/2 lb peeled) + extra slices for topping
Pinch of coarse sea salt (optional for topping if you like)
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (if doing cocoa center)

Preheat oven to 300F. Grease baking pan of choice (either an 8-9 inch fluted flan tin, a bread dish or muffin tin) and dust with flour OR lightly moisten baking paper and line tin.
Whizz 9 oz almonds and baking powder in food processor until finely ground, but be careful not to go too far or you’ll end up with almond butter. Set aside in bowl.
Whizz eggs, sugar, bananas and cinnamon for about 5 minutes or until pale and really fluffy. Pour over almond meal and stir through.
If adding cocoa powder, place 1/3 of batter into separate bowl and stir in 2 tbs of unsweetened cocoa powder. To create the chocolaty center, first pour 1/2 your original batter into baking tin, then do your dollop of cocoa batter and then pour remaining original batter to cover cocoa. Top with thinly sliced bananas and almonds. Bake about 40-45 minutes for bread and 30-35 minutes for muffins (or until top is browned and skewer comes out clean). You just don’t want to overcook in the oven because they’ll continue to cook a little as they cool. Sprinkle on sea salt immediately after removing from oven.

Cinnamon Puffs

After much long deliberation, I have decided to make these Cinnamon Puffs featured from Selene's blog but adapted from Smitten Kitchen. I have accidentally missed out vanilla extract. Other than that, I would say that the recipe is perfect. 

For the coating, I didn't follow totally using 2/3 cups of sugar. I thought it would be too much and what would I do with the leftovers? I reduced the sugar but forgotten to reduce the cinnamon powder. Ha. Anyway, it turns out well and there is still leftovers. 

Recipe yields 24  puffs for me. As I have only a 12 mini muffin pan, I had to bake twice. The first batch is better perhaps because I had baked slightly longer and I had grease the pan. (I didn't grease the pan for the 2nd batch). 

Coating
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Puffs 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing muffin cups
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Butter 12 standard size or 30 miniature muffin cups, or line cups with paper liners.

Prepare coatings:
In a small saucepan, melt 6 tablespoons butter over medium heat and continue to cook it, stirring frequently, until brown bits form on the bottom and it smells nutty and heavenly. Immediately remove from heat and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine 2/3 cup sugar and cinnamon. Set aside as well.

Prepare puffs:
Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg together in a medium bowl and set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined.
Mix in 1/3 of flour mixture, followed by 1/2 of buttermilk, repeating again and finishing with the flour mixture. Mix only until combined.
Spoon into prepared muffin cups, filling only 3/4 of the way.
Bake standard sized muffins for 20 to 25 minutes and miniature muffins for 12 to 14 minutes. When finished, muffins will feel springy to the touch and a tester inserted into the center will come out clean. Transfer them in their pan to a wire rack.
As soon as you feel you’re able to pick one up, take your first puff and roll the top and upper edges in the browned butter. Don’t be afraid to pick up the browned butter solids at the bottom of the saucepan; they’re the dreamiest part.
Let any excess butter drip off for a second before gently rolling the butter-soaked cake top in cinnamon-sugar. I find if you roll too firmly, or have too much wet/not absorbed butter on top, the sugar can clump off.
Transfer puff to wire rack to set and repeat with remaining puffs.
Eat warm.
For an even more indulgent, doughnut-like puff: Make an extra two tablespoons of the browned butter and roll the whole puff in it and the cinnamon sugar.

Do ahead: Puffs are best within hours after they are baked. They can be made it advance and stored in a freezer bag until needed, too. Simply spread them out on a baking tray and reheat them until warm in the oven.

Hey Hey Hotpot

Before our movie, the gang decided to try out Hey Hey Hotpot as Lynnie & I have some cravings for steamboat.

Shop wasn't that difficult to find as it was located at the basement of PoMo. I had been there before with colleagues and felt that the food there was not too bad except that the price is slightly higher compared to those steamboat shops along Liang Seah Street.

We had 2 set meals that day.

Winter Melon soup & shark meat soup.

We have much more food than what is shown here. However, general feedback was that the portion is a little small and it wasn't really enough. But the soups was very flavourful after everything had cooked in it.

I guess there is no second place that beats Liang Seah Street. But, this is certainly one place where you step out without smelling of steamboat you had earlier.

1 Selegie Road, #B1-20
Pomo Centre Singapore 188306

Tonkotsu King

One fine lunch day, L had ramen craving and suggested we go Beppu ramen at Tiong Bahru. But M said there is MUCH nicer ramen at CBD area and highly recommended us to go there instead. And so, we arrived at the highly raved Tonkotsu King at Tras St. 

When we arrived, there is already queue forming. We had to wait for around 20 minutes for a seat. The catch of the ramen here is that you could decide how Q you wanted your noodles to be and how strong you want your soup to be. And yes, there is free flow of hard boiled eggs & beansprouts. You can eat as much as you want. 

The queue.

Interior.

Free flow hard boiled eggs.

Mine. Normal ramen with strong soup.

L's. Normal ramen with red soup (spicy) and strong soup.

M likes ramen from here a lot. His wife is a Japanese and he says the ramen here is pretty authentic. You can add alot of sides to the ramen, for example, flavoured egg, seaweed, more meat etc. It comes with a price, of course.

Basically, I feel that the ramen here is of very japanese style. More emphasis on the noodles and the soup base. While Beppu's has alot more ingredients to the ramen like corn etc. Both have its pros and cons, but you have to pay ERP to try this ramen.

Tip: M said there is lesser/no queue during weekends. Try your luck then.

1 Tras Link, #01-19 Orchid Hotel
Opening Hours Daily: 11.30am–3pm, 6pm–10.30pm (Taken from Hungrygowhere)

Lao Ban Beancurd

老伴豆花 finally reaches the west!

As I was on half day leave due to collection of graduation gown, I decided to check out if the rumors is true - the famous beancurd brunch finally landed in the west.

It is! Located inside Cityvibe shopping centre in Clementi. Long queue is spotted when I am passing by on the bus. I had walked around the shop confirming its existence. And the long queue is indeed waiting for the shop to be opened.

Since I had some time to spare, I had decided to join the queue as the opening hours is 1pm & 6pm till sold out. And hey, its only few minutes to 1pm. Thus I joined the queue under the scorching sun...

Its hot I tell you. Cannot believe that I am one of the people in the queue.

After 40 minutes, I was at the front of the stall. 45th minutes, I laid my hands on the beancurd. The sickening thing is that the lady 2 persons infront had wiped out the entire Almond flavored beancurd. I don't have the chance to try it... Managed to buy the original flavor instead.

Tada!

Verdict: It is really nice. Very different from the traditional kinds of beancurd in the hawker centres. You won't get sick of it when you finished the entire serving. It is sweet in nature and hence there isn't a need for sugar syrup. Smooth and delicious. But if you ask me to queue 45 minutes again for the beancurd, nope, I will not do it again.