Sweets from Philippines - Ensaymada

SC has been raving about this bread she tried in Manila, Philippines when she traveled there on business. So on her last trip, she brought back two pieces of Ensaymada for me to try.

Ensaymada originates from Marjorca in Spain where it is called ensaïmada. It is a brioche made of lard, eggs, sugar, flour and cheese. In the Philippines version, it is made with butter instead and topped with various ingredients.

I got to try Ube (yam) and Chocolate ensaymadas and they were really yummy. Soft sweet bread topped with shredded cheese and the various toppings. I much prefer ube which is yam and reminded me of our "or nee" (yam paste). The chocolate version was so-so for the topping.

I wonder where we can find ensaymada in Singapore. It is really a nice snack for an afternoon pick-me-up or quick breakfast.

SC will be heading to Manila again and she will be bringing me more flavors to try. Her favorite is with salted egg topping. Can't wait for it :p

Lunch at Inagiku Again

I am still so into the food at Inagiku at The Fairmont. Somehow, this is the place I will want to go when I want to splurge on good Japanese cuisine.

So I was at Inagiku last week for lunch with another friend. I had been thinking of the chirashi ever since I saw what Agnes had the previous week. Sea urchin and lots of fish :p However, I decided to just try the regular chirashi set just to see what the difference was.
Again, I chose chawanmushi as my starter instead of salad. It was still as good as previously. Nice steamed egg sliding down the throat.

My chirashi. I requested for no eel (Type A blood group is not meant to have eel, but I forgot to tell the staff that I also cannot take scallop, prawn and crab. So I decided to just eat everything :p) and so the long thin strip of fish was actually a side of flounder. Very nice. The whole bowl of rice and sashimi was excellent.

Tanny had the chef chirashi and she also requested for no eel. The chef chirashi has so much more things - otoro, prawn, sea urchin and some other fish not found in mine - plus the rice itself has some flakes of salmon in there too. I want fatty tuna too! Delicious. She also felt it was too much food.

Maybe next time we could just order one chef chirashi and add some other stuff from ala carte and just share.

The miso soup was very clear and tasted more of seaweed and mushroom than of the usual salty miso paste. Pretty refreshing.

We topped up our dessert and had the ice cream instead of the fruits. The green tea ice cream was not too sweet and had a pure green tea taste, and the red bean paste was a perfect foil against it. The red bean paste was not too sweet either. The black seasame ice cream was equally rich and yummy.

Instead of after meal mints, we were served green tea chocolate truffles to end the meal on a sweet note. I like the truffle but both Agnes and Tanny do not like it. Too bitter for them. I guess I like bitter food (chocolate, green tea but no bittergourd) :p

Zaika - North Indian Cuisine

There is a new, or it is new when compared to the other restaurants on the same stretch of road, Indian restaurant along Race Course Road. Zaika - North Indian cuisine with a difference is how they call themselves. Zaika prides itself on using fresh ingredients, low flame cooking and rich spices, reminiscent of the Mughlai cuisine.

It opens just 8 months ago and I guess many people do not know of this little gem yet.

I was surprised to find myself the only guest when I stepped in around 12:20pm on a Friday. Usually the Indian restaurants I went to would be crowded and filled with people. Maybe it helps or didn't help that Zaika is right besides Jaggi's which has been around for ages and always crowded.

Currently there is a very good lunch buffet deal at Zaika. $9.90+ for about 10 items, including free flow of orange squash. Maybe that is their angle - free orange squash - cos everyone seemed fixated on the orange squash.

Service was good, drinks were served promptly and the bombay chat was brought out once I was seated waiting for my friends. Then again, if I was the only one there, I guessed there was no excuse to be inattentive?

The room is bright and airy with orange as the theme. It is the orange restaurant, with orange painted walls outside.

Bombay chat was good. Crispy and a bit spicy. The green sauce was a mixture of corianger, chilies and mint and other spices. The staff told me what was in there but I forgot the rest. The brown sauce was slightly sweeter. I thought there was plum in there but apparently not. Again, a mixture of spices with chilies. The bombay chat would soften after time so it was recommended to eat it as soon as possible.

Samosas and vegetables pakoras. The samosas were filled with mashed potatoes and green peas. I found them a bit dry, not that nice. The vegetable pakoras were awesome. Just simple vegetables fritters with spices. Some found them spicy but I was fine with them. This was the only dish that we re-ordered.

Tandoori chicken covered with lot of onions. I liked the tandoori chicken with its tenderness and slight tangy taste. I also ordered raita as I like yoghurt with the cucumber and tomatoes to cut through the greasiness of the curry. They did not charge me extra for that.

Warm, soft naans. Simply yummy when using it to mop up the gravy/curry. We didn't have rice at all. The naan kept us filled up.

Butter chicken. My favorite dish of northern Indian cuisine. The buttery taste of the curry detracted the mild spices of the dish.

Fish curry. This was average. We didn't rave about it unlike the butter chicken which was the clear favorite of everyone. The curry was a bit thin and slightly tangy which was good as it was not too rich. The pieces of fish were soft and flaky and did not have a fishy taste, attesting to the freshness of it. But somehow it just did not "wow" me.

Mixed vegetables curry. It was quite normal with peas, potatoes in there. It would be great over rice though.

I love this too. Yellow dal (lentils) in a huge container. It was so good with the naan. I kept thinking of nasi briyani when I had this.

The dessert we were served. Rice pudding with aromatic spices. Somehow I just do not like spices in my sweets so I didn't finish this. Not really my cup of tea.

I don't mind going back there again to order from the ala carte menu. The prices are reasonable, with most dishes under $10.

Location

Zaika Restaurant

38 Race Course Road

Tel: 6341 7621

Sun with Moon @ Wheelock Place

Continuing on my "Eat for your Blood Type" diet, I ordered the cod teriyaki set from Sun with Moon Japanese Dining at Wheelock Place. The set came with cod teriyaki, sashimi salad, miso soup, rice and fruits. Very light and simple.

Sashimi salad with fresh greens and cubed salmon, tuna and hamachi. I like that the dressing was on the side. I usually prefer to have my greens without any dressing or very minimal sauce.

The grilled cod glazed with teriyaki sauce and some grilled pieces of veggies. Nice.

Ebay Experience

I have heard of ebay. I mean, who has not heard of ebay before? But I have never bidded on anything on ebay or sold anything on it for the simple reason that I prefer to do my online shopping with regular shops with online presence. Plus there are so many horror stories about ebay. Bad buyers and sellers, scammers, and all that.

One day when I was too free, I decided to just look at ebay again and browse what is actually available there and I was amazed with the plethora of goodies put up for sale.

I decided to start my first bid on an Anya Hindmarch Be-A-Bag collection. I have always like this range but now Anya no longer does a ready to sell collection. Instead buyers get to bespoke their own Be-A-Bag using the pictures they like. While I appreciate the uniqueness of a customized bag, I also like to have some ready-made bags for choices. The reason why I never really bought the bag was the price point in Singapore, plus the designs didn't attract me then.

Anyway, so I saw this Dalmatian bag in blue which was NWT and bid on it. Being a newbie in bidding, I made several mistakes.

1. Bidding too early when there were still many days left before the auction ended.
2. Panic when someone else upped your bid.
3. Follow ebay's suggestion to up your own bid when you are already the leading bidder.

So because I made these mistakes, I pushed the amount to well over my budget even before the auction came close to an end. But at last, I finally understood why some people always monitored the bidding page during the last few minutes of the auction. And how someone could actually join the bid at the last minute and won the item right under your nose.

The Anya Hindmarch bag was finally won at US$182.50 by someone else in the final 6 seconds. D also mentioned how she won her item at the final 4 seconds.

Sometimes you do wonder if the auction could be fixed in the sense that someone else was just jacking up the prices all the time so that the final buyer would spend more than budgeted?

In any case, it was quite an experience on ebay. For those who prefer straight forward transaction, there are some auctions which do only "Buy It Now" so it was a case of just buy it if the price is right for you.

Happy bidding on ebay. There is also buyer's protection when you use Paypal to pay the seller when you won a bid or did a BIN.

But as with any online activity, one still needs to do their due diligence on researching the product and sellers, etc.

Image from ebay seller shoponine$$.

Lunch at Toast, Takashimaya

It has been a long time since I last went to Toast. I don't know why I stopped going, maybe it is due to the crowds over there now. So we arranged to meet early, and so it was not too crowded when we got there around 1230pm on a Saturday. I decided to go "healthy" by ordering the salad combination - chicken caesar and roast pumpkin with tofu. The chicken caesar was yummy with creamy caesar sauce and fresh crispy lettuce and grilled chicken. The pumpkins were sweet and not too mushy. The tofu was refreshing with the tangy dressing. Too much food though.

A healthy main needed a not so healthy dessert to end the meal. My favorite cupcake - ultimate deluxe. It was still as good as ever. Chocolatey cupcake.

Killiney Kopitiam @ Killiney Road

Sometimes it was just nice to have a traditional snack (or late dinner) with kaya butter on lightly toasted white bread. The sweet kaya (coconut egg jam) with creamy cold butter on soft fluffy toasted bread was simply heaven. I much preferred Killiney's version of kaya toast compared to Ya Kun's thin toast. The teh complemented the simple meal though usually I would have coffee. But since coffee keeps me awake when taken at night, tea it has to be.

To supplement the toast, I also had the chee cheong fun. I rarely ordered chee cheong fun since it was just rice flour roll sprinkled with chopped green onions and seasame seeds with sweet sauce and chilli. But this was surprisingly pretty good. Silky smooth rice flour rolls with the sauce and simple garnishes hit the spot.

Other dishes on the menu were chicken curry with prata (excellent), slices of French loaf (also good) and rice; mee rebus, mee siam and the soft boiled eggs.

Totally Luscious Cupcake

I was at the Body Mind Spirit Festival at Fort Canning Park last weekend and chanced upon this stall selling cupcakes. Having a sweet tooth, I just had to buy one to try :p Chocolate cupcake from Totally Luscious Cakes. It was good. Soft fluffy chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Apparently it was an organic cupcake though I just could not taste any difference at all.

Thunder Tea Rice

It was a day to be healthy and I decided to finally try the thunder tea rice. Somehow it never looked that appetizing to me with the assortment of veggies and other stuff with that bowl of yucky looking green soup.

I ordered the brown rice which was not too bad as it gave a bit of bite to the dish. The assorted greens were also pretty good. The soup would be an acquired taste as it had a strong basil taste. I just poured a few spoonfuls over the rice for some sauce since I always loved to have gravy on my rice.

Creamy pasta with tomatoes, bacon and mushrooms

A simple home cooked dish. Penne in cream sauce with honey tomatoes, crispy bacon broken into pieces and sauteed sliced mini portobello mushrooms.

I love mini portobello mushrooms. They are so much easier to handle and the woody smokey taste lent so much more flavor than fresh button mushrooms. The bacon was grilled to a crisp, and I used the bacon fats to cook the mushrooms. Lovely meal.

I did not have a recipe with me to create the cream sauce when I was at the supermarket and decided to go the easy route by grabbing one of those sauce mix :p

Music: Everyone's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Musician: Baz Luhrmann
Song: Everyone's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
Voice: Australian voice actor Lee Perry
Written by Chicago Tribune columnist, Mary Schmich, published on June 1, 1997.
The song was released in 1999 by Baz Luhrmann.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97. Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience...
I will dispense this advice now

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh, nevermind, you will not understand
the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can't grasp now,
how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that
worrying is as effective as trying to
solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

The real toubles in life are apt to be things
that never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday
Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts.
Don't put up with people who are reckless with your's.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy;
sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.
The race is long, and in the end,
it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive.
Forget the insults.
If you suceed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters.
Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22
what they wanted to do with their lives;
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll divorce at 40.
Maybe you'll dance the funky chicken
on your 75th wedding anniversary.

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much
or berate yourself either - your choices are half chance,
so are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can...
don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it...
it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines
they will only make you feel UGLY.

Brother and sister together we'll make it through.
Someday your spirit will take you and guide you there.
I know you've been hurting,
but I've been waiting to be there for you.
And I'll be there just helping you out whenever I can.

Get to know your parents,
you never know when they
might be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings;
they're your best link
to your past and the people
most likely to stick with you in the future

Understand that friends come and go,
but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in
geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths.
Prices will rise, Politicians will philander, you too will get old.
And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young,
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble,
and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair,
or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy,
but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia;
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past
from the disposal, wiping it off,
painting over the ugly parts,
and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Everybody's free. Everybody's free

I heard this song again a few months back but never really caught the title and I only managed to find time to google it today. It is so true - the lyrics. Pretty applicable to life.

So love yourself and enjoy your life. You have but one life to live it to the fullest, and to be true to yourself. Walking to your own drum beat and not to the constraints of society. Dance. Be free.

Another Coffee Club Sandwich

Continuing on with my sandwich obssesion at Coffee Club, I popped by the outlet at Millenia Walk for a quick late lunch/early dinner last weekend. Feeling peckish and hungry, I decided on Club Julius which basically had everything.

Smoked salmon for one layer, grilled chicken and slices of hard boiled egg with caesar greens on another. It was absolutely delish, especially when the toasted foccacia was smeared with the caesar dressing. Again, this sandwich was too much for 1 person. Would be better to share with someone. In the end, I left about 4 slices of bread untouched.

Coffee Club Sandwich Obsession

Coffee Club has a new promotion featuring all kinds of sandwiches. The set meal comes with side salad, fries and a drink (iced rambutan, coffee or tea). Quite a well-rounded meal.

With such a good deal, I decided to try the sandwiches. I had the iced rambutan which was still as good. Cold, icy, sweet drink to quench the thirst on a hot day.

I ordered the Dirty Harry which was similar to sloppy joe. Minced beef in sauce with a slice of cheese over it and all slapped onto a buttered toasted bun. Nice. It was fairly big portion though so it might be good to share before you got sick of all the meat. The fries were crispy and good too.

Lunch at Inagiku

I am still on a Japanese food kick. I think I will not ever get sick of Japanese food as there is just so much to choose from - sashimi, sushi, tempura, yakitori, cold soba, udon, ramen, teppanyaki, etc - and all so yummy.

So we went to Inagiku over at The Fairmont for lunch since the lunch set is definitely much more affordable when compared to dinner set. The lunch set ranges from $65 to $130 (I think), and with the FAR card, it is not too bad.

I chose the set which includes sashimi and grilled fish while Agnes had the Tokujoi Chirashi set.
We both selected chawanmushi instead of salad as our starter. The steamed egg was so smooth and silky that it just slid down the throat. No bubbles or hardness at all.

Agnes' set - the chef chirashi in a huge bowl. It looked so good. Agnes said the salmon roe had a bit fishy taste to it though I found it ok. I liked the soya sauce taste on it.

My "healthy" set with the grilled saba, sashimi, rice, pickles, miso soup and broiled vegetables.

I am very pleased with the sashimi selection since I loved all the fish there - salmon, yellowtail (or swordfish - same buttery taste) and tuna with a bit of salmon roe.

The big grilled saba (mackeral) which was nicely done with crispy bits at the end and edges. That orange thing was not tomato but tasted a bit plum like.

The miso soup which was good. Didn't finish it though as I was so full by the time I was through with the saba.

The broiled vegetables in a sweetish sauce which made them all the more tastier.

Our dessert of a fruit platter. Lovely plate design and food presentation.

I think I still prefer Inagiku for premium Japanese food and the portion is usually quite big, especially for dinner sets.

Japanese Dining Sun Chijmes

There is a current promotion with Shu Uemura over at Japanese Dining Sun in Chijmes where there are some dishes which are good for you in the beauty sense. I decided to order the burdock chips which is made of some kind of root vegetables and is good for you. They were thinly sliced and reminded me of sweet potato chips. Nice.

And we decided to get our own foie gras appetizer. 1.5 pieces of foie gras was too little for one and 3 were too much was our conclusion. I started to feel a bit "jelat" after biting the 3rd piece. So we concluded 2 would be just nice. I simply love the foie gras over at Japanese Dining Sun, maybe it was because of the sauce which was brushed over it. It didn't have the usual liver taste which I dislike nor the powdery texture. Instead, it felt like butter and simply melted in the mouth. Yummy!

For the main, I ordered the Hokkaido ramen which was still very good. And I actually saw the small piece of Hokkaido butter on top of the noodles. Nice. Richness overload for dinner :p

Basil Chicken Set @ Suntec Food Republic

There are only a few stalls which I patronized when I am at the Food Republic over at Suntec City. The Thunder Tea Rice stall is one of them. I usually order the basil chicken over white rice which will come with egg and soup (soup not included if you order to-go).

I was feeling a bit peckish and also ordered another add-on of tofu and omelette. I didn't realize I could just order the tofu on its own too.

I loved how the basil brought out the taste of chicken and the sauce. The chilis added an oomph to the dish too. A simple and hearty meal.

Garuda Nasi Padang @ VivoCity

We were at VivoCity and was wondering what to eat when it occurred to us there was Garuda Nasi Padang. Being a Friday night, the dinner buffet was not available. Buffet is only available from Monday to Thursday. Actually it was ok to go ala carte since there were only 2 of us and the cost more or less came to what would be if we had the buffet. Only difference was that we didn't get to try lots of dishes. Beef rendang which was not too spicy and yummy. Squid with petai which was nice. The eggplant with chili was not too bad and long beans with tofu. We didn't finish the long beans which was quite ok. Too much food for just 2 of us.

Bergedils or potato patties with minced beef which was so nice.

Also, a side of the chilies (red and green) - awesome. Went very well with the rice.