Dinner with the flatmates and WY!!

Er.. This is a mince beef rendang pancake with sweetcorn. Aa was totally wide eye when he saw this. For a moment, he thought I had gone bonkers but I reassured him that mine dish will definately be safer than some of his "unique" past creations. Anyhoo, I used this Asian gourmet rendang paste and mixed it with some mince beef and sprinkled some tumeric over it. Give it a good fry and then add some sweet corn. It tasted ok lor... a bit bland and lacking in the rendang flavour. It was edible but I don't think I will be making it anytime soon. Just one of those bad cooking days lol.

Luckily, Aa had something to supplement the meal. And guess what TOFU again . This time it was mapo tofu though but without mince pork but in its place, some prawns. Hmm. This was the spicy sourish version. I think i prefer the savour version much better.

WY joined us for dinner and he contributed a dish of fried broccoli with fish cake and mushroom. I think he likes fishcakes with veges, seems to order it quite often when he's eating at chinese restaurants.

Well... not a good day for food... but its ok rite. Still got food to eat... lol.. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Spaghetti Bolognaise Aa Style

This was Aa's version of spag bolognaise. Basically like mine a tomato meat sauce plus his touch of "what ever i can find in the fridge i'll put in". You can probably see from the pic there's corgettes not cucumber, tomato, celery, olives and red onions. Ppl cook for me of course I will say nice rite but it was nice la and I finished it all up except for the olives. Yikes.

Dinner with the flatmates

Hey hey the curry didn't burn this time round because I learnt my mistake. Added more coconut milk this time round before I went off to surf. I used one of the asian gourmet spices but felt that there wasn't enough paste after frying it and decided to spoon in 3 dallops of sambal chilli. The end results was suprisingly shiokingly hot but pleasant. Will have to stock up more of that potent sambal chilli the next time I go back home.

Aa made a special XO sauce fried with tofu and egg. Quite nice leh. Must be the combination of XO sauce and fried red onions that provided a sweet savoury glaze to the onions.

Overall, a satisfying meal with white rice and good company.

CrabShakk

So good was this restaurant that apparently you need to make a reservation 2 months ahead before getting a reservation. That however did not stop us from getting a table one fine saturday afternoon. It wasn't a planned outing at all. Somewhat impromptu when we were passing by the place and I mutter to Aa, "hey there's no one in crab shakk". "Really!" Aa.. The next thing I know he had already made a detour and was ready to park the car and called C to meet up with us.

Its almost impossible to spot this restaurant on Argyle street with its greyish dull exterior that spells more "I am a paint stall rather than HEY FRESH CRABS INSIDE COME GET ME" but trust me as you open the doors, you will be spell bounded by the clean wood and steel finishes that will instantly remind you that you are walking into an expensive restaurant.

My expectations were high and I so much wanted to try every single bit of crustacean on the menu. Unfortunately, I knew that was impossible and we opted to share a few dishes amongst the 3 of us.

We had 2 soups. The one in the foreground is the crabshakk bisque. Pretty much a crustacean bisque that was in every essence full of a smokey shellfish flavour and embedded with a handsome portion of crab meat. I found it abit too overwhelming at times and if it could be diluted down by 15%, the magic would been better. The seafood chowder on the other hand hit every single tastebud in me. Do not be fooled by the plain appearance in the picture because beneath that milky cream, you will find muscles, fish and crab meat. It was probably the best seafood chowder I have had in Glasgow.

Fried food is always nice. This dish is an example of how presentation and portioning can allow you to sell food at 10 times the price you normall pay at street hawkers. There's nothing complex about this dish. Whitebait, salted heavily and deep fried. So good and tasty you wish the portion was doubled but before you jump on to say please give me another plate, I would like to remind you that this starter cost 7 quid.. !!!!!!!! ( I can almost hear my mum screaming wah you know how many kilos of ikan kunning I can buy . hahaha)

Moving on... we have crab cakes. Yup how can you not have something crabby in crabshakk. These little patties are about an inch in diameter. I can reassure you i tasted only meat and none of that starchy stuff that you find in frozen crab cakes. These were alittle disspointing as they were over deep fried and tasted really dry.

Lastly, a plate of vongole pasta to share. Simple, clean and tasty. If only there were more clams hee ;)

Well... I can't say I will come back here anytime soon mainly because its just too expensive to do so and it dosen't feel you up. Food is good and certainly one of the best place for scottish seafood. Definately want to come back someday to try the scallops and brown crab . Going to have to save some $$ first....

CrabShakk
---------------------------
1114 Argyle Street
Finnieston
Glasgow G3 8TD
0141 334 6127

Vegetables are so expensive!!!!

All these vegetables cost 2.75 pounds. How is that possible man!!!!. .. Honestly, if veggies are going to be so expensive how do you expect people to maintain 5 portions of fruits/vegetables a day. I really should have bought them from cheapo iceland or tesco and not from "atas" roots and fruits..

My mistake... then again they tasted really good . especially the tomatos.. (P.S: I don like to eat raw/semi cooked tomatos but these were great)

Blackbean Sauce Chicken

My first cooked meal since coming back. The luxury of a cooking mum is unavailable at the moment so I'll have to make do with my own hands. Afterall, why did God give us hands ? (yes picking our nose is one use lol)

So... I rummaged through the sauce bag and found this packet which mum threw in. Looks simple and tasty enough to use.

Threw the rice into the cooker, chop the ingredients and within half an hour, a nice meal.

Ingredients
------------------------
1x Lee Kum Kee sauce packet
sesame seed oil
sugar
1 packet chicken (6 drums inside approx 600g)
spring onions
Onions

Deboned the chicken and chop into pieces. Fry the onions in oil, throw in the chicken give it a good bath. Smear the sauce all over the meat and drizzle some sesame seed oil over if u like and maybe add a pince of sugar. Serve with spring onions.

The final lunch

This is a back post. Last homecooked meal before I flew back to Glasgow. Simple yet soul nourishing. Some Ngor hiang to start off.

Fresh Fish from the sea in a soy sweet chilli gingery sauce.

EXtremely fresh squid from the beach just down from my house. Squid was stir fried with veges in a oyster sauce.

Some greens with fresh prawns.

Missing the luxury of home cooked food already............

ben and jerry

I could not believe what I saw when I steped into this shop, previously occupied by O'briens. COLDSTONE style icecreaM!!!!!!!!!!!. This truly is an amazing discovery. Never would I have expected a concept ice cream like this to appear on Byres road. Think about it, who eats ice cream in such a cold place.

Whatever it is, this place has really gotten me excited. Previously located on creswell street (Which I totally was not aware of), this shop has taken up a prime location on byres road next ot pepparinos. This is a little humble shop beautifully decorated with lotsa candies and candies, accompanied by a small sitting area for up to 5 groups.

I counted about 12 different types of icecreams from your usual classics to american favourites like strawberry cheesecake to your local favourites like caramel and tablet. Wat it is tablet ? well... No idea but it tasted sweet and had some caramel short cake type sprinkle on top of it.

For the unintiated, cold stone style ice cream involves scooping up some ice cream onto a cold marble stone and sprinkling any type of toppings and sauces before battering all if together to form your "creation".

My creation was a 2 scoop combination of strawberry cheesecake ice-cream, a ferraro rocher, marsh mellow goo and some hot chocolate sauce that instantaneously solidified upon pouring. All of these for only 3 pounds!!!. Its really cheap for such good quality ice cream. Seriously.. and the portion is enough to make you feel like stopping . Oh my was a medium. The large tub goes for 5 pounds and its almost twice the volume of the medium .

I highly recommend this place and I can't wait to go back again!


3 Steps 2 Heaven
Byres Road (Opposite Iceland)
Glasgow
07881401216
http://www.3steps2heaven.co.uk/

Coit Tower, Swenson's

I love ice cream. Swenson's is one way of enjoying some styled sundaes without bursting my wallet. Haagen Daaz is good but just too expensive to gorge myself. I had a coit tower after contemplating whether I should have an earthquake all by myself. However, it would have been an overkill had I chosen that.

This classic is a very basic creation of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with nuts, banana and chocolate and strawberry sauce. The combination was so familliar that someone asked whether it was a banana split.

Split or not, I finished it really fast and was craving for more.

Swenson's
Tampines Mall
4 Tampines Central 5
#03-30
Tel: 6781 5489

Opening Times:
10.30am - 10.30pm [Weekday]
8am - 10.30pm [PH & Weekend]

Sushi Tei, Tampines One

Sushi Tei again but this time at the newly opened Tampines One shopping mall. The restaurant has 2 floors of sitting with a nice view of tampines on the upper floor. The deco was in typical chic Modern Japanese styling with a super powerful aircon (brr.. freezing)

We tried a Dai Dai roll which consisted of salmon, fish roll and crabstick? . Weirdly, it tasted like a mexican chicken sandwichfrom Glasgow.

The girls had a portion of salmon sashimi. I din't try but it should be good.

and they had deep fried squid as well. I wonder where's the Japanese mayo?

On top of that a vegetable tempura. I like the way the golden mushroons were fanned out before being deep fried.

I had a jumbo chicken yakitori. It was jumbo in size but really lacking in taste and texture. Super dry and tough. Wasn't what i was expecting from what looks like thigh meat. Tori Q is still the way to go. Conclusion, don't order this

Otoro belly soup? or was it just fish meat soup. Tian was keen on soup so she had this for herself.

I had a ebi and egg rice set. Actually I just wanted some rice with sauteed onions and egg in a gooey Jap sauce. The prawns were alrite but not fantastic. Soggy in fact after immersing in the sauce. Maybe they should put lay the prawns on a seperate plate the next time.


Sushi Tei
10 Tampines Central 1
#04-13 Tampines 1
Singapore 529536

Telephone +65 6784 7877
Facsimile +65 6784 7577

Opening Hours
11.30am to 10.00pm daily
(last order 9.30pm)