Cooking Boeuf Bourguignon

I was having Superhubby's besties over for lunch at our place. So I decided to cook the french beef stew called Boeuf Bourguignon. For a first timer, I did quite fairly well, though not perfect. Whose perfect anyway??? I modified the method to suits my time and taste.

Fresh chunks of beef... Chunks of carrots and tomatoes... I was supposed to use tomato paste.. but I couldn't get the one I wanted... so I just make do with the fresh ones...
Pieces of meat are being sauted till medium rare and removed to a separate plate so that I can use this fats from the meat to saute the carrots, onions, tomatoes and brown button mushrooms.

Then place all these ingredients in a pot or casserole (I used non-stick pot as my casserole is not big enough to cook these chunks). Add salt and pepper to taste. I added some herbs to bring out the flavour of this dish too. Pour a whole bottle of red wine (preferably young red) and simmer under slow fire and cook this for 3 to 5 hours. I cooked this at night as I was busy on Saturday night. Hence, I cooked 3 hours the night before and another 2 hours on Sunday morning.

Boeuf Bourguignon

My homemade Chawanmushi

I made these as a trial.. not bad for a 1st timer... will be making this for my lunch gathering at home this Sunday.. as starter... then my beef bourguignon with mashed potatoes for main course, and my famous triple chocolate brownies as dessert.. hmm.. so looking forward to Sunday. Its a pleasure to see my friends enjoying the meals I cooked.. So priceless

Hey Hey HotPot

On Monday evening 26.10.09, Superhubby suggested to have dinner at Hey Hey Hotpot at Paradiz Centre. The food was damn good and I will definitely go there again. We are already in the planning to bring Supermommy and Superbrother there for dinner when they are here for Xmas. So can't wait to have them here...

I recommended this place to 'yo-darling' but somehow his wife knew the brother of the owner of this restaurant, Mediacorp actor Terence Chao. We didn't know the place is partly own by him as we only knew the owner as Douglas, who happens to be in some choreography for Mediacorp too. We were lucky to have bumped into Douglas that nite, and as according to him, he is seldom there due to his busy schedule at Mediacorp. But he was there on Monday as one of his friend were there for dinner and seems to be a VIP to him. He is a nice, chatty and friendly guy.

I love this little dim sum most. Damn yummilicious....

The staffs are very friendly too. All smiley, very attentive and prompt, from topping up of soup, dishes etc

Here is my fav little dim sum, before it goes into the hot soup...

dipping dipping..... hot hot!!!

Tah dah... a bite and you can taste the sweetness of the char siew in this little soft bun. Do I need to say more?

Mango pudding was good but not the mango sago.. tasteless but we did gave our feedback on this to Douglas. Hopefully he will do something to this one... otherwise.. the rest are almost perfect...

I scooped some of the mango sago juice to the pudding...

The typical wall of a restaurant owned or visited by celebrities....full of their photos..

Cold clam as starter / appertiser. Not bad...

Zuchinni in sweet sauce... nice too... crunchy and sweet

This is the ultimatum... the winter melon soup.. damn gorgeous and delicious... speechless...

Looked so imperial... isn't it?

These very thinly sliced beef were fantastic... just deeped them in less than a min... may be say ... 30 seconds... and they tasted heavenly...

Special made chili sauce... I do not like chilis but this one.. I likey likeyyyyy...

Look at the varities they served us, even without us placing an order... standard set when you go for the buffet... but you can always ask for repeated dish and they are happy to serve you.

Hey Hey Hotpot... We are definitely coming again... SOON!!!!

Dinner with Ah Gong

As usual, Saturday dinner with grandpa, da-gu and us.

We wanted to go back this Thai restaurant at Blk 57, Geylang Bahru but somehow we realised that another zhi char stall had taken over this restaurant. Since we were already there and grandpa insisted the food to be cheap and good, we thought no harm giving it a try. Btw, grandpa have not eaten there besfore. He heard from someone that the food there was nice. Hahaha.. old ppl.

Not bad but not that cheap either.

The tauke-neo insisted we try their new dish called Braised Pork Ribs... which we did and it came with a plate of 5 little man tous (fried bun). Not bad as the sweet bun goes well with the sauce but I used them to dip the curry from the curry fish head instead. (see below)

Superhubby and da-gu loved their "chut chut".. a type of shell seafood that requires some skill of sucking the flesh out from these shells. Yikes... I wasn't that interested with such art of eating seafood, though I tried but I don't really like it. Haha.. not in the restaurant.

But I love this nonya style curry fish head. One of the best curry fish head I had even eaten. The fish was not fishy.. and the curry.. very unique... we ate everything...(except the bones of course).. but the sauce.. dry dry lor... Hahahhaa... Yummilicous.

Hairloom & Caramel

On Friday for lunch, finally... I managed to catch a real meal at Hairloom & Caramel. Been wanting to go there for dessert for the longest time since the place was newly opened, but never get the chance to. They closed at 8pm from Monday to Thurs and 1pm on weekend.

I went with the other 3 musketeers, "darling", MT & WL. We ordered Ice Lemongrass tea with Honey to kick start with, while waiting for our main courses. Weather was so damn HOT out there and these iced teas helped.

Do not underestimate this little cup of plant. We had lots of fun and laughther "playing" with it and I almost accidently brought it back to the office in my little pink lunch bag. Hmmmmffff.. don't know who was the culprit... everyone was a suspect.. except me!!!

"Darling" ordered the Smoked Salmon spagetti with lemon cream sauce... I almost wanted to order this dish as I love cream sauce base but when I thought of the lemon thingie.. I changed my mind as I am not someone who would like to taste lemon in my food.. though I love lemon juice as a drink. Food? Not to my palate... but surprisingly this tasted good... may be because the lemon is needed to get rid of the fishy taste of the smoked salmon. Goes well with one another. A very good combination. I shall try this dish if I were to go there again.

MT had the chicken spagetti with Japanese sesame sauce. She was trying to have this dish translated into a full mandarin sentence and we were laughing at the way she read it. So funny.. I wanted to order this earlier too. But the thought of japanese sesame, not sure if I will take the taste of sesame.. what if its too strong? what if it taste weird? I always seems to order the wrong food... so I decided.. better be safe. Order something safe... something that I know how it would taste like.. Hahhaa... I so can't take risk with my food. I want to try everything, but end up always eating the same old dish or the safest of all.

Anyway, I tried a bit of the sauce when it arrived and love this too. WL ordered the same dish. I will have to come back twice to this place in order to try both dishes I mentioned.

This is my play safe order. Today's Special. Shitake Mushroom and Bacon spagetti in tomato sauce. Hahaha.. told ya its a very safe choice. Not bad though. I have always love mushroom... anything made of mushroom... I just love them. This explain why I ordered this dish. The moment I saw the word "mushroom"... no hesitation. Plus with my doubts on other dishes...not much choices too.

I also love the little heart shape on the plate. Cute...

So good.. that I walloped everything from the plate and found a little bear underneath those noodles. hahaha....

I didn't try the dessert as I was quite full already by then and the dessert doesn't look as appertising as their pics on the website. Hmmm.. I gave it amissed this time.. may be next time I might try the chocolate caramel...or creme brulee... yum yum...

a Haircut and more foodies with Sharon

Yesterday, I went for my hair cut. After contemplating whether to keep my hair long again or should I just cut it short? Finally, with such freaking hot weather, I can't take it anymore. Thats it!!! CUT CUT CUT!!!!

I made an appt on Monday noon for Wed @ 730pm with Vince. Sharon text me on Monday evening asking me if I want to have a haircut on Wed as she has made her appt. You see, I did not mention anything to her about getting a haircut and the last time we went there together was in April. I recommended Vince to her as he is my favourite hairstylist. Funny chap. And he is really good.

What a coincidence. So immediately I called Sharon and told her that I have made my appt same day too, but at a later timing as I will not be able to make it for the earlier slot.

Anyway, I was damn "suay" yesterday. I walked to the usual pick up point for the Suntec free shuttle service to City Hall, now knowing that they had moved their pick up point to where I came from. So I walked back to where I started, saw the bus and I was afraid the bus would leave me behind, I ran. Then I took the train from City Hall to Raffles Place as I only know how to get to Xtrimhair Salon (located at Boat Quay) from RP. I thought, since I need to draw some cash from DBS atm machine, the nearest I could think of, are the ones at Chevron House. Slot my atm card in, then suddenly, the screen turned white and read "This machine is temporarily not available".. Fine!!! I waited and waited.. my card didn't appear... I pressed "Cancel" button... doesn't work.. I stood for 5 minutes, hoping for miracle to happen.. NO... Nothing!!! SHIT... but cool down, I called the Customer Service hotline provided at the machine and I had no choice but to go to any DBS branch to get a new card as replacement. But hell, it was almost 730pm. Banks were all closed. I decided to proceed to Xtrimhair and only had the card replaced today at the branch in Suntec.

I didn't manage to get a pic of my new haircut.. I was too hungry to even think of taking pics of my new head... so Sharon and me went to this Sundanese restaurant for dinner and it was quite a good deal. They were having a promotion at $10++ per pax for 4 dishes, with 1 main and 3 sides. These were what we had. Not bad.

We started off with barley and lime juice.. rather refreshing
They served their chilies on this stone. Quite interesting but I never taste the chili as I am not a chili person and I never like sauces to spoil the original taste of my food. I like my food as it is.

Left: Ayam Bumbu (tasted like curry chicken to me, only made from different type of spices)

Right: Tauhu Telor (Egg toufu)

Udang Nanas (Pineapple prawns)

Beef Rendang

Sambal Terung (Sambal Eggplant/Brinjals)

Petai Beans (ooooh.. I love this ... my all time favourite dish.. they served this raw, yum yum)

Deep fried dory fillet