Tuesday, December 30, 2008

T'was the Night Before Christmas (Cheesecake version)



T'was the night before Christmas, 
When all through Caffeinees, Christmas songs played on air,
While sipping cold chocolate and shaking her knees,
Lolipoops decided on making a cake, mixed with delicious cheese..

The siblings were nestled all snug in front of their PCs,
While Lolipoops scanned through the recipe book,
Which teaches how to cook, 
Baked and chilled cheese cakes, they seemed so easy.

When out in the store, there, arranged without clatter,
An array of cream, cheese and butter to make people fatter,
Looking at the piece of paper,
Brown sugar, digestives, cornflakes and butter,
Cream cheese, powdered gelatine, and thickened cream,
Fresh orange juice, mango essence and castor sugar,
Not to forget, a box of orange jelly crystals.

First the base, 110g of butter mixed with digestives biscuits; 200g,
Crushed them together with 50g of cornflakes and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar,
Fried them fragrant, and pressed it on the cake pan,
Then a phone call and Lolipoops forgot to press it firmly with a hand.

Next the batter, 500g of cream cheese and 120g of castor sugar,
Squeezed 3 oranges and mixed them together,
Dissolved 2 tablespoons of gelatine in hot water,
Last, 300ml of thickened cream and beat it smoother.

Everything went into the springform cake pan,
With a piece of foil, covered the top nice and neat,
Into the fridge the cheese batter was sent,
And overnight Lolipoops waited with gritting teeth.

When dawn came it was all and well,
Out came the pot and 2 and 1/2 cups of water,
Into the pot went 85g of jelly crystals,
This was where Lolipoops got it wrong, dear oh dear,
Jelly thickens easier with lesser water!

Took out the cheese cake to make the topping,
Onto the cheese cake, Lolipoops was pouring,
3/4 of the jelly she had been boiling,
Cake pan was full, it had been telling.

From 10am to 4pm Lolipoops waited,
Cheese cake was wobbly while it got sliced,
Jelly was droopy 'coz not that thick,
The base was crumbly, bits of them falling like rice!

In horror Lolipoops transferred the cake,
The sister took a swipe and licked it off her thumb,
"Mm-hmm..it's yummy-yum-yum!"
Albeit the disastrous table from the mess it made.

Lolipoops tasted it and pondered what went wrong,
Was NOT bad at all though the chilling it took so long,
So a picture was snapped on the teeny camera phone,
If you think it looks ugly, you are not alone!


















"Wobbly" chilled mango/orange cheese cake.
Presentation: out of 5
Taste: out of 5

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Another journal of weird and wonderful Korean cuisine

Hen-chan came to knew about this restaurant that's hidden just behind the Great House that I had mentioned in my previous blog entry. I was going to puke into her face if Hen-chan brought us to another restaurant that serves the same thing like all restaurants did, but my oh my...what a surprise! It's a few doors away from Caffeinees (which I may or may not blog about next).


Tadaaaa..! Spicy chicken, deok bok gi (spicy rice cake),vege, yam, potato all mixed on a "teppan" (hot plate). You can choose to wrap your "chikin"(that's how the sweet Korean girl pronounced it) in the big vege leaves served on a small plate, or eat it from the "teppan" itself.



Next, "ramyeon" is mixed into the teppan and I know this thing looks like mee goreng mamak. The chikin flavour doesn't taste that strong but overall it's nice to eat. 



We were served a bowl of cold kimchi soup. It's full of crushed ice, and it tastes...weird and weirdly refreshing. Never had such soup  before, but according to Chan-chan, it sure reduces all the spiciness of the chikin!













This is how the teppan looks, it's really big...later they fried rice with seaweed on the same teppan after scraping up a thick film of oil and debris. Interesting...

The making of a zaru soba meal. Do try this at home.


Soba:
1) Buy a pack of zaru soba i.e. "ざるそば" in Japanese , "buckwheat noodles" in English, from any Korean minimart or Japanese mart if you like... and the sauce for soba (got that from the Korean minimart). Mine's fish-flavoured.
2)Boil water and put in your soba sticks and make sure it is soft enough to prevent indigestion.
3)Drain the water and rinse your soba a few times, cold tap water will do.
4)Put some ice cubes onto your soba or chuck the bowl of soba into the fridge (which is the easiest!)

Sauce:
1)Mix 2 parts of sauce, 5 parts of water into a small cup and stir kau-kau and taste. If it's not enough pour in more sauce.....

Chow-time:
1)Take out your soba and get your chopsticks ready.
2) Dip your soba into the sauce and enjoy!


Monday, December 8, 2008

Red Alert 3!!

Aghh..I'm dying to get this game after seeing it in action on my bro's pc...it's so COOL!

Monday, December 1, 2008

We felt like healthy old citizens....



Hen-chan, Chan-chan and I went jalan-jalan cari makan the other day for korean cuisine near my home. Since we had patronised 90% of the restaurants located in front of Ampang Point, we decided to explore the "unseen" ones at the back of the Korean Village. The week's week before, we had dinner at this "lengchai" restaurant as Chan-chan calls it, because the waiters are soooo "lengchai" - got tattoo lar, got ear stud la, it seemed like we were being served by male hosts like the ones in Ouran Hosts (the anime), but the food was........SO-SO. Most probably the lady boss knows her business well. Sex sells...like MTV.

SO, we explored the shop across the street from where the lengchais are working the following week, and we stumbled upon a comely-looking restaurant with yellow signage, titled "The Great House".



You cannot miss this sign.























The food looks normal, but wait till you get in and make your order.
















My bowl of cold noodles in healthy yellow-bean broth + fresh cucumber slices and I had almost finished it...











Then, unlike the usual watermelon platter, we got these!!! Incase you are wondering what-the...?!? We had gulped down fresh and sweet tomato juice and had forgotten to take pics :P











And these were the dishes we had finished, no clues left on the table as to what we had eaten... Tee-hee...

























Nothing to shout about of the interior but our chief target was the FOOD!






The Great House has great healthy food at great prices, cheaper than the average Korean restaurant.... what more can I say....too full to say anything except :BURP:

And, the nice Korean lady manning the restaurant had a good thing to say about us - she gave thumbs up for finishing up her food...ahahaha...and she'd presented us her name card which is all in KOREAN!

p/s: Hen-chan, so you wanna call up the auntie and tell her we'd advertised this so next time we can get discounted rates?





On 1st Dec 2008, the Moon has extended its greetings!