19 March 2010

Mango Pancakes

I am a bit frustrated. After making pancakes for a number of times, there are still moments of doubts when I start to mix the ingredients. I would ask myself if I have to add this ingredient or that .. It is after all just a simple pancake :S

I made some plain pancakes today to serve it along with fresh mangoes and maple syrup. Mornings are a lot better when you have breakfast, I swear. 

  Overview of 2 plates of pancakes ready to be eaten

 Zooming in! I think at least my pancakes presentation is improving. Overall it was nice and healthy!

Have a good day everyone!

18 March 2010

Pareee - January 2010

Bonjour tout le monde! (I hope Google Translate is accurate...) Soenke and I visited Paris in the first week of January this year. Getting there was really fun. We took the ICE train that took only 3 hours to get to Paris, from Mannheim. I think that is impressive for a village girl like me as it was my first time to take a train that goes an average of 200+ km/h. Me like very much. 

When we reached Gare de L'est, we hopped off and went looking for our hotel. 

(to be continued, due to insufficient quantity of photos)

Goin' home

When I am back in my hometown of Ipoh in Malaysia, it could only mean one thing for breakfast. Breakfast from the local coffee shop, that my parents frequent all the time, enough for the owners to remember their names and their usual orders. 

They serve simply the best iced Milo there. Here is something to share, one of my breakfasts I had in Ipoh:

Fried noodles (the order would be rice vermicelli with eggs and prawns) and iced Milo! Check out how fat and juicy those beansprouts look. The taste is so wonderfully yummy. One bite of that and you feel you have been completed. Simple fare but heavenly.  

17 March 2010

I may need anger management classes

Today, on my way home on the MRT after meeting up with the girls, I realised some people have really "different" habits. I was trying to read a book and jumped into the first seat that became available.

However, instead of settling down comfortably into my seat and my book, I noticed that the guy who sat next to me was making a lot of small sounds. And I found out, from the corner of my eye, that he was putting his fingers into his mouth, which is followed by a "pifff" sound usually made when you tried to spit something out with some air force from within. 

I couldn't take it. Disgusted, I stood up and took a look at what he was doing. This man in his forties with a round big belly is busy chewing his nails and spitting them out!! How much more disgusting can that be?! I mean, it's okay if he can't kick such habits BUT do it in the privacy of your own home! He was so intensely biting one nail after another and shifting positions to make his nail biting session more comfortable, I wanted to slap him. Yes, I felt really like slapping him because I do not need a person spitting his chewed nails on to me. 

Only two things stopped me. (1) It is against social norms to hit and injure individuals (2) his face was oily and full of scars, which gave me an "iiihhhh" feeling at the look of him. 

Arghhh, the unfairness of life. Honestly.

16 March 2010

Nana Bread

Has anyone ever wondered why banana bread is not known as banana cake when the texture of it is exactly like cake? I did! I am not a big fan of bananas but I remember I used to have the most awesome banana bread for tea when I was growing up. And it so happened to be in my breakfast plan! Hence, the next big step to take is to start bakin'!

The output :) The smell was totally heavenly.....
 A stack of cut & wrapped banana bread to go 

I definitely had a great time baking and had a great breakfast as well. Very satisfying. Bottomline is I want to say it is not that hard. This is the recipe I followed from Mr. Breakfast's webpage.
  • 1 and 1/4 cups flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 bananas
  • 8 Tablespoons margarine
  • 1/3 cup walnuts (optional)
Cream sugar and margarine, mash the bananas and add to the mixture.

Beat and add the eggs. Slowly add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Pour into a loaf pan.

Bake at 350 F for 30-45 minutes.

Total thumbs up!
 

15 March 2010

Nasi Lemak - Literally means Fatty Rice

I had been having cravings for nasi lemak. Homemade nasi lemak. Maybe the normal S$1-2 packet of nasi lemak sold everywhere is not satisfying enough for me. I just want more! In situations like this, I would have to make it myself!

The challenge of creating this is, however, the normal nasi lemak comes with sambal (chilli paste) that is cooked together with belacan (dried fish & prawn paste). In this case, Soenke is totally 100% adverse to seafood. So, sambal must be without seafood. Here goes:

 Nasi lemak with roasted peanuts, sliced cucumber, vegetarian sambal & curried fried chicken

Making the sambal was a challenge. I couldn't find a small packet of chilli paste so I blended my own with fresh red chillies. Frying onions and garlic together, I mixed chilli paste and tomato puree in (tomato in sambal was Dani's idea) and poured some ground chilli powder to add some ooomph. It tasted strange without the belacan, just a lot of chillies. Shook in some sugar and refried it, and wow, it was nearer to the real deal. 

The curried chicken required oyster sauce as part of the marinate. Not possible. I used curry powder, a bit of vinaigrette and a splash of soya sauce with chopped garlic. It smelt really good already. Yummy. Deep fried in hot oil and it was just so aromatic! 

I have never roasted peanuts before. I realised the reason why they had to be roasted now. They are soft and non-crunchy but after roasting it long enough, it gets crunchy! Wowee! Tick besides successful nasi lemak. Cheers!
 

09 March 2010

What is a bad day?

We all grow up believing that adulthood is an amazing thing. We all had gone into university, anticipating the day we fling our caps high up in the air upon graduation, running down the steps of the university, all ready to swim in independence. 

As the process of job hunting starts, you go up in a peak as you ready for the first few interviews, and slowly sputter along wondering when is that god-damn job gonna come. When it finally comes, you hope for the best. A great work environment, awesome colleagues, and a cool boss. 
What happens when your illusion of a perfect entry to the grown up world is not as nice as you would want it to be? What happens when you end up in a joke of a company. As far as my working life is concerned, there is  a rather lot to bitch about.

I got fired six months into my first job, simply because my then-boss decided that he wants to show his employees that he is fair and therefore made me his plaything. He wanted to fire a colleague and I got fired along as well so she would not suspect targeting on her alone. He had expected me that I would opt to stay. No, I did not. I would never let such injustice happen to me. Boss or no boss. (Yeah, I got fired but has an option to choose to stay or not). 
My second job is simply not suitable for me, unfortunately. I thought I could do it but I was not enjoying it at all. And I also had some health problems to deal with. At that point, I decided to quit and to fix myself, health-wise. And also mental-wise. 

When I was all fixed, the company with which I had my first job, offered me my job back. The management had changed and I went back thinking all is good. Unfortunately, around six months down the road, today, I got retrenched. The company was floundering and the owner decided to simply shut it down. 
I could simply sum up that in my short career life, I had gotten fired and retrenched in a span of two years roughly. I asked myself on my way home, what is a bad day? How bad could it get after this? Then, I saw a man sitting opposite me, silently brushing away his tears with his shirt sleeve. A man, crying in public. Well, as bad as it is, I guess he got it worse than I did.

What is work life? I am having some really big doubts. What can I do to push further? What is the hallmark of being successful? How do you know that your job is secure? And by the way, does it mean that if you earn a filthy big sum every month, you are considered a high achiever who has got everything? Does it mean that because your position allows you to wield some power over other people, you are king/queen, someone to be look up to? 

To a certain extend, it seems to lose the sense of humanity for me. Everything. Accepting what fate has given me is one thing, understanding it and making it work for me is really another. I was told that whatever that came my way, is just a chance for me to prove that I am stronger.

I hope so. To sum it up, I think nothing makes a bad day. Unless you were killed. Then you really had a bad day. Think of the quake victims out there. Think of the  4-month old baby who died because her parents did not give a shit about her. And the unfairness of it all. For these people, they really had a bad day.  
 

08 March 2010

I Porta-ed!!

After 3 attempts, we managed to eat at this restaurant call Porta Porta. We finally made it yesterday! The first time we went there on a Monday night, and you know what, Monday is their off day. Second time we popped over last Friday, and it was full house. We were turned away for having no reservation! BUT we were smart enough to get their namecard and made a reservation for Sunday night. So, we finally got in and found out what this place was allllllll about!

Porta Porta is an authentic Italian restaurant that is very small in size. Forget restaurants that seat 20-30 persons at any time. This doesn't! I think there were only around 7-8 tables.  You can't deny the cosiness it oozes though. And through out our makan session there, many customers had to be turned away (just like what happened to us the second time we were there!!). I feeeeeel for them. 

Anyway, let's get on with business. The menu is very simple. But what caught my eye was the house menu which consists of antipasti, soup, 2 types of pasta, seafood, a meat dish and 2 types of dessert.  Sounds good rite? The other highlight of the menu is this "Fai Te" item (I hope I got the spelling right), that is for a minimum of 2 persons. What that means is you let the chef decide what he would like to serve you. So everything is a surprise! However, that is for another day. I ordered the house menu and Soenke got himself a rosemary chicken dish. Let us begin! 

An overview.Antipasti of paprika, mushrooms, eggplants & zucchini. We had lemon soda and chinotto for drinks. Chinotto is really interesting.  It's like drinking bitters, spicy and bittersweet.

 Close up of the antipasti. Eating it with fresh warm rustic bread is so Wah wah Wahhhhhhh.....

 
This is Soenke's rosemary chicken. Very yummy. It gives you a totally wholesome feel.



 My soup from the house menu. Chicken soup. The white cloudy mass is very finely shredded chicken meat, mind you. 

I forgot how this is called. Tortellini? Ok I think that is the name. Filled with cheese and in pesto sauce. Soenke said there's a special name to the sauce but I can't recall it. There was 4, we ate 2 and remembered that we were supposed to capture it! Yea, was distracted.


 Pasta with clams. Slightly spicy and very flavorful. I think it's cooked with a bit of wine because I can certainly smell that. I was drinking the rest of the gravy in the end. Perfecto.

 Fried calamari rings. I have never eaten them so lightly coated. Very nice. However, at this point, my tummy was rather full.
Beef casserole? Well, something beefy. Very nicely done. Beef was super flavorful and tender. Soenke had attacked this dish as I was too full already. Lucky guy :)

And...for the finale! My 2 types of dessert! Tiramisu and apple pie. What can I say.. awesomeness.

So here it is. I totally think it deserves to be blogged. The pictures were captured with an Iphone. So please bear with me for that. I also think that the food is equal to the amount of effort we put in in trying to dine there. So worth it. 

Oh for those who would like to give it a go, please do not forget to make reservations!

Porta Porta
971 Upper Changi Road North 
+65 6545 3108 
Tue–Fri
12pm – 2pm, 6.30 – 9.30pm
Sat–Sun
6.30pm – 9.30pm