Mizuki: Good tempura

A beautiful place at Ngee Ann place.

 The opener, pumpkin tofu with jelly is refreshing.

The tempura chef bought us the fresh ingredients before start cooking.

Kissaten Japanese coffee shops

Kissaten is Japanese adoption of coffee house. Kissaten 喫茶店 literally means tea-drinking place. It often hosts a place for afternoon coffee with assorted cakes.

For breakfast some kissaten served, at Asakusa area;

The cafe has numerous short books that seemed to cater to customers wanting to chillout and read. There is single person counter facing the wall, as well as, a small table of 4. Currently during Covid restriction, all dining places only accommodate up to a party of 4.

Restaurant Euphoria

We went with my best friends Lisa and Ming to restaurant Euphoria last Friday night. 3.5 hours dinner full of laughter and good times.

Ming encountered a traffic accident on her route home to restaurant, so she decided to drive. A brave decision after incident she encountered during her journey dealing with her diabetic condition. And she was late as a result of convoluted CBD traffic rules and circumstances of Friday-night parking. So Lisa and I were able to catch up between us for a while. We discussed about our past, as well as I shared with her my discovering on psychology of self-shaming as well as we touched on some of her experiences dealing with choosing to go on her own path on a job offer, a while ago.

I will post some pictures later on when my photos are uploaded to OneDrive. What compelled me to write this blog now is that I am reading the blog written by a lady in Sydney, about FIRE. Her blog was written as she discovered FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) a bit late although she was only in her late forties: https://www.latestarterfire.com/.

 

First fine dining out meal after June2021 semi-lock down

Finally, after 6 weeks of semi-lock down, I met up with AP for Japanese dinner. Been looking forward to this catch up! Last time we gathered for yakitori & izakaya-theme dinner at Yatagarasu for mine's and Ming's birthday celebration and the country went to lock-down prohibiting dining out when we were going to celebrate AP's birthday.

Sakemaru Artisan sake hideout is a nice place, even nicer now with spacious bubble around each dining group. We chose seats at counter, which is the best as we can see the chef in action! There are humongous display fridges lining up both sides of entrances full of sake selections, each with small accompanying notes.

As part of our mission to elevate the global standards of Saké, the SAKEMARU Artisan Sake Hideout is a concept dining experience to showcase our extensive range of exclusive artisanal Saké alongside modern Japanese Kappo-style cuisine here in Singapore.

The menu is interesting. The opening salvo was a raw-fish-in-season-that-i-forgot-the-name (shult?) that came seared perfectly with brown rich.

Firefly squid as starter: Seasoned well, and seared to perfection, the bite-sized squid came with tomatoes and mushroom all   

The fig mascarpone was unfortunately out of stock, but somehow the chef sent a complimentary order perhaps because detecting our disappointment when the hokkaido corn was also out of stock! Likely, out of his omakase supply :)

The fish somen was exquisite, it's light and the jelly-like broth complement the somen with fresh roe.

The best is ama-ebi which came large size, with raw golden egg yolk with soy-like sauce.

For main, we ordered simmered tender beef tongue. It came with squid-ink sauce, and tongue so tender, I didn't believe it's the body part. Unfortunately the taste is a bit bland, perhaps a bit overcooked?

For sake, we had a charafe of Kasaichiyo casareccio Omachi 50, which I enjoyed a lot. It is perfect as starter sake and has a pleasant floral like aroma. It goes down well especially with sashimi and light dishes.

We then ordered a bottle of Shirakiku Mirror Mirror Muraku Genshu, an Honjozo Junmai. It is a new conceptual sake made of apple yeast and black koji. Thus has a sourish taste, but goes down pleasant and dry. My friend spotted Shuhari which we would like to try - it's rare artisan sake from Okamoto village Yamadashiki Usunigori Nama.

Overall, I remember the chat, gossip with one of my bestest, and wisest friend in the world. We talked about our own blind spot, pacing in life and career, and shared some anecdotes about experiences working in different environment with slower pace, and about enterprise business applications.

Looking forward to next catch up!

A tremendous sense of gratitude for the night out.

 

Cantucci

One of my favorite desserts from Italy is Cantucci with Vin Santo. It is a simple serving of a couple of cantucci (which is almond biscotti) with the sweet Italian spirit vin Santo. The spirit is called holy wine as it is the exact same type of wine used in Catholic mass to consecrate Christ' body in bread and wine ritual.

I love the fact that cantucci is storing well, especially in the humid Singapore weather. A bag of cantucci di mandorla that we bought from train station in Venice taste so good, in November, a full 3 months since the end of our vacation. Ahhh, the sweet taste of Italian holiday right at home.

Let’s bake!

Cafe Restaurant Amsterdam

Random post

Cafe Restaurant Amsterdam, Westerwerk

Vienna

I had a terrible jetlag, so it is 230am right now and I am wide awake. Might as well documenting my thoughts of the recent holiday before time and memories fade away...

Next up is Vienna, a well developed city. It feels wealthier, especially off our train which departed from Venice, which is another expensive city. The city is clean, I spotted the main sights around the compact area which I had researched throughout my trip.

Breakfast onboard the OBB train

Resting at OBB Lounge

In essence we spent the day around the Stephendom, travelling from Schwedenplatz U-Bahn (the metro stop), strolling towards south passing Fleichmarkt, Stephansplatz, around the Vienna Opera house and finally Karlsplatz. The St Stephens cathedral is of course majestic, but what I can remember is the stop for horse-carriage next to it. We also wander around the shopping street, and found Petersplatz where the magnificent St Peters church was a highlight.

Domkirche St. Stephan

Graben

Hotdog stand or Vienna's hotdog (Würstelstand)

In front of St. Peter's Church

The Baroque interior of the Church

We then stroll to the and Albertina where we stop to rest at the junction near the famous Sacher Hotel. Through a kirschy time-travel exhibition that depicts the old Vienna from Roman time. It looks interesting for history-buff we had the time.

We passed the large public square Heldenplatz where the old imperial Palace was.

Public square & gardens in front of the old imperial Hofburg Palace, with imposing statues

Heldenplatz

 Crossed to the east for Vienna Opera House (Wiener Staatsoper), arriving at Ringstrassen area.

There is tourist information centre where we rest, while Henry and Mom hunted some photo at Sacher hotel.

Velvet sofa at Cafe Museum

Sacher torte

Apfelstudel with vanilla sauce (divine)

Original "Wiener Schnitzel"
golden brown breaded veal cutlet, parsley potatoes, lettuce and cranberry sauce

Viennese mixed sausage platter
four kinds of different, typical Viennese sausages,
onion mustard, horseradish, gherkin and rye bread

The desserts bar

Omigosh

We then capped our trip via a superb lunch at Cafe Museum, a smart cafe on Operngasse with replicas of original Adolf Loos decor, a former hangout for Klimt, Schiele & others. It opened in 1899; although their desserts selection is very tempting, we selected Vienna's speciality. My favorite is the original Wiener Schnitzel (made of veal not pork) and Apple strudel (Apfelstrudel).

Karlsplatz

 

Japanese Healthy cooking

Ever since I had started running, I am also starting to watch my diet. For training season, I am following the 10k training plan by Hal Higdon, but also this women's running blog. Hal Higdon's plan is world-renowned, however I found it too systematic to be pragmatic. Coupling this with the women's plan, that is more specific, I found it easier to chart my distance, speed, time spent on the gym.

My goal is 10k training for the first 2 runs of The Performance Series, (1) in Coney Island on May 1st, and (2) in Jurong Lake on June 28th.

My diet comprises of simple soup-based and I am hooked with simple Japanese miso soup.

This is the recipe I follow from Japanese Cooking 101 in YouTube.

For Dashi stock, which is the base soup for all Japanese cooking, I used non-MSG packed powder that I bought from Meidiya supermarket, plus bonito flakes bought from Daiso.

Next, Daiso stock is used as base for miso soup. Miso is made of fermented soybean, and has two main types White miso and Red miso (Aka-miso). Generally the darker the color, the more intense and saltier the flavor.

Recipe
4 cups Dashi stock.
4 tablespoon of Miso paste (1 tbsp to 1 cup ratio)
Soft Tofu. Cut to tiny squares.
A handful of seaweed
2 stalk of spring onions.


Preparation
5 - 10 mins
Boil Dashi stock with ingredients that need boiling. Such as diakon (white radish), mushroom, or vegetables.
Bring down from boiling point.
Mix in tofu softly.
Add seaweed.
Stir in miso, using streamer to avoid disturbing tofu.
Warm the soup.
Just before serving, add the spring onion that's been diced.
Serve warm with rice.

Tart Blanc

Went with mom to redeem tart blanc voucher from groupon. Ended up the tiny place was full, went to Mos Burger next to it at Millenia Walk. Afterwhich we strolled around in Harvey Norman. The Tart has to book 3 days in advance. We ended up purchasing display-set Bosch vacuum cleaner that is on 50% sale.

Finally we are enjoying Tart Blanc tart, today on Friday, so yummy and fresh. Not very sweet, but you can tell it is baked with care and high quality ingredients. Each is SG$7.50 so pretty pricey for a tiny indulgence.

I first had the Banana Chocolate Silk tart, Marinated Bananas, Caramel Sauce, Roasted Banana Cream & Chocolate Silk Cream. The banana and chocolate is always a good combination.

I then shared the Blood Orange Matcha tart, that is made of Orange Jelly, Orange mousse with Jivara Chocolate filly, & crumbly Matcha base.

Credit, from various internet sources. http://danielfooddiary.com/2014/01/24/tartblanc/

I said good bye my Business Group

Last night , we went out for my farewell dinner, on Monday I'll be starting my new job in a role with Asia Pacific Microsoft Enterprise group, as their Annuity lead.

I am excited, sad, nervous, worried, excited (yes, I said this twice now), about the opportunities, and what lie in the future.

For Dinner we went out for Catalunya, which I love. Its kitchen is headed by a group formerly in kitchen of El Bulli, which was voted a couple of times as the top restaurant in the world. El Bulli was then closed down, as the Chef/Owner wanted to restart his enterprise.

Catalunya is located at a unique shell-like structure out of the bay in Marina Bay Singapore. This allows the dining area to be surrounded by the view of Marina Bay from Fullerton, towards Marina Bay Sand, across to Esplanade. Its door is simple and easily missed. It used to offer 1-for-1 cocktails at the bar, which has been discontinued. My favorite drinks are Flamenco Martini and Sangria.

farewell team, mbs.

Family holiday to bandung

Here is my super-long guide based on my last trip just for you guys. 

Quite useful and comprehensive guide about the city here: http://wikitravel.org/en/Bandung

Famous restaurants:

• Kampung Daun - means Leaf Village. Best time to go is Friday night. Service can be slow, but ask for Pondokan that is. Very taste bbq fish, and local food. The weather is cool and nice.
• 
  
• Rumah Strawberry - pick your own straberry, but the highlight is the local nasi liwet package. Very fragrant with friend or bbq chicken, etc.
• The Valley, is a restaurant in a hotel that is the top of the cliff. At lunch, you can see the cliff overseeing the Bandung city. At night should be pretty romantic :) the price is steep though, means like Singapore level pricing. The way there is also very scary and steep, an interesting experience, as you follow narrow road among the villas. #2 The Valley
  
• And then Warung Bu Tris, Braga Permai, Rm Ampera, are a couple of wellknown quality and name.

For Shopping Cihampelas, I feel by staying there at night you’ll be able to find some interesting things. Other than Cihampelas:- there are some unique factory outlets along Jalan Riau with better quality clothing and shirts. Heritage is the most famous one, it's housed within an historical building. And there is a couple others side by side along the walking distance. Conveniently, there are snacks pop-up stores just outside to do some local snack shopping. Check out the “branded bags” section and let me know what you think hoo hoo

Hakone Hot Spring

My 2 favourite items in Hakone are the sulphur egg and Hot Spring.

Black egg look a bit like this. The website said that it's available for 500yen at the Owakudani egg steaming hut. Alternative is I got it at the Souvenir shop at the opposite of Hakone Yumoto station, level 2, in the cold section for a little over 200yen and it's cool and refreshing to eat (I like).!

And about the hot spring:

How to Make Japanese green tea

I just came back from Osaka, holiday from Japan looking fit and slim.Small wonder since the holiday involves 7-8 hours sightseeing and walking every day.

Then I read the article about the secret of Japanese food, to longetivy. Its common knowledge that the Japanese enjoys one of the longest life expectancy in the world. According to article, the key is control of the quantity food consumed, which makes a lot of sense. The diet also made up on unusually high number of seaweed, raw fish, veggie, tofu and green tea.

Speaking about greentea, I am inspired to as I recall a particularly beautiful green tea cup served in sturdy-but-light wooden bowl (non-heat transmitting so you can drink your matcha in comfort) that was full of light bubbles but delightfully light and pure. It was served with a nice pinkish bean-mochi. I think I had it at one of the traditional teahouse near Shinjuku-Gyoen, or Kyoto or Kamakura. In any case, I just viewed a youtube video to recall proper way those cup of greentea is served.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doEhQaynLs

Korean Beef Bulgogi

Always when i crave for something sweet and savoury, the korean dish that is hot, covered with dark soy sauce and bbq-ed come to my mind, the beef bulgogi. Tonight i tried cooking the dish after shopping for some fresh beef flank and lean meat at FairPrice Finest, the "fresh and higher-quality" version of the NTUC Fairprice supermarket, after my driving lesson at kovan.

This is the recipe i used. And instead of sesame seed and sesame oil (which I ran out) I used LaYu chili oil that has strong sesame taste.

Ritz Champagne Brunch

Went for the Ritz Carlton's champagne brunch. After my pocari sweat run 10km run. My timing was horrible, joined the 3rd wave flag-off time at 7:21am, and arrived at 8:54.......

The champagne was very nice though. I must be drinking 5-6 glasses of the Moet 2004, Vintage. Waiting for the photos to be uploaded from my WP8 to Skydrive.

MOET vintage

 

They also have the best seafood section. 1) Baked lobster, and 2) foie gras with gold specks.

Fresh oysters - 5 types:

 

 

Seafood section with unagi maki, fresh sushi, and sashimi belly....

Making BakChang and weekend

Today I woke up before 7am *yay* after a long while. During a short run towards marina bay, I could see very dark ominous clouds forming above Asia Square blowing towards the MBS. I tried to run, run to beat the clouds and wind, but i could feel the tiny drizzle catching up. Finally, towards the end of MBS, I made detour to the mall.... so there goes my morning run.

After 15 run in the tiny gentle drizzle, I reached home. I didn't want to wait and waste time, so I ran in the rain (felt so nice) and reached home by 8:18. After shower, I felt great as I haven't been for so long. After breakfast of mom's meat porridge (with little jewels which are the salted yolk, very fresh and nice) I helped mom to prepare the ingredients for her making of bak-chang (literal translation from Hokkien dialect, Bak = meat, chang = dumpling) by preparing the yolks and cleaning the dried bamboo leaves. I also marinated pork meat as pork chop for lunch with my collection of herbs.

After lunch, I wanted to make a good use of the heavy cream I bought last time (for $8 1L it's a good price, it's also too good to waste). So I whipped an 100-ml and have it with green tea ice cream Haagen Dazs.

It's lovely bitter green tea macha + sweet whipped cream . Product link

Here's more information about whipped cream:

My cooking today

After a depressing but unsurprising news from my massage therapist, I decided to do my home-cooking hobby to ease tension in my body. I am hooked on recipes from this book from Amazon (shipped all the way from US!), I tried:

• A variation of Rochers today - with cashew, almond, and Cointreau.
• Honeycomb candy - honey, corn syrup, lots of sugar, gelatin, and baking soda
• +coated with chocolate
• Also did the dark-chocolate truffles (with some success).

Honeycomb-candy

Coated honey comb in the fridge

For ganache, I used chocolate from Cacao Barry - while I supplemented my chocolate coating with Callebaut. The Cacao Barry turned out to be oily as I managed to skim about half a cup of chocolate oil that bubbled up from my ganache. The box indicated 41.8% Fat.

Ps. I also cooked Carbonara for dinner with mom. :)

Chocolate fascination

So I went out and borrowed a book about a beautiful potential new hobby, Chocolate and Candies.

Book cover - link to Amazon.com

And managed to fill-up my amazon cart with the following.

which I am still gathering the courage to order...

Some of the tips of melting chocolate, tempering, about how to choose essential equipment, and at-a-glance-simple recipes are so tempting.