Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

An Equador Rose

Say it with me. #iloveyouimissyousecretfriendshippleaseforgivemeremembermethankyoubemysweetheart. On a rose.

Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

An Equador Rose

Say it with me. #iloveyouimissyousecretfriendshippleaseforgivemeremembermethankyoubemysweetheart. On a rose.

Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

Archive for December 2010

Black Tau Kwa


Rainy

Hiding with slippers of grass jelly, rice noodle rolls and steamed buns, is this black beauty that is not to be mistaken as any cooling dessert.



It is actually one of our cultural foods, black tau kwa or black beancurd! Firm beancurd that can be added to almost every dish, beans, noodles, spring rolls or meat. Black that is the stunt double of carbohydrate starches, like when we've always had the antagonistic black and white fried turnip cakes.



Nothing of the sinister, this is not smelly fermented beancurd, deep-fried beancurd or severely braised beancurd. It is non-GMO beans eschewing the MSG, wholly vegetarian and tipped with a little caramel.

Unicurd Black Taukwa (SGD 1.25)

Burn it a little till it gets toasty at the sides, and this will manifest the caramel out of them. Caramel, the same moving liquid found at the bottom of your pudding. Give it a whiff and it is like sweet popcorns throwing their pretty heads at you.



Put it in bread for a protein punch! Alongside its fluffy buddies, it feels like eating a scrambled egg sandwich with ketchup, the colourful food granted by this genie beancurd, very old-school yet always working.



The beancurd itself is very plain, despite the harsh colour and appearance. On its own, it is very beany, save for a crunchy crust that tastes like chocolate. Where we have the asian carrot cake, now we have the eastern oreo cheesecake!

P.S. The sparkle of cocoa brown. The delights of this chocolate pizza on its own, now I can conjure why there is cocoa pasta, and spaghetti broken with chocolate sauce.

Green and Red Cuppa


23 Dec, 2010


Tcc has always been known for its festive brews. In 2008, Eggnog Desire was a heap of snow, fudge and white edible snowflakes and dark green and red jimmies. In 2007, Berry Oreo was a cold concoction of iced chocolate/coffee with yellow, pink, light purple, blue, green and orange edible stars. This year, it returns with the Nutte Winter. We await at what will be created for 2011.

Nutte Winter (SGD7.00)

Christmas is prescribed in 3 colours, with tiny silhouettes of red and green firs beckoning. The cup is immediately transformed into a landscape. There are robust clusters of peanuts at the bottom.


Tcc is not some catchy syllable trio, it stands for The Connoisseurs Concerto, something found out only today.

P.S. Sipping such coffee, and time away, it feels like winter outside. Sometimes, not only the immaterial, paraphernalia can also do time travel.

Green Buns

Drizzling

The light here turns rose-tinted, and the food themselves, soaked in sap green. The atmosphere becomes phantasmagoric, out of a medieval rpg or a virtual encyclopedia.



Green bread! To collect all of them throughout the journey. (We will need their help later on).



For the bread and green breads, they are found in 3 different kinds at green pumpkin. The anpan, a japanese sweet bun, dragon roll, a circle of twisted bread, and matcha (green tea) loaf.



Matcha Koshi Anpan (Left) and Matcha Tsubu Anpan (SGD 1.20 ea)

Intergalactic stars. Opposites of each other. Shade bewitching the sesame seeds out of each bun, making them look a little too numerous and teetering. Yet this is nothing when you think of a hamburger, sesame seeds on a toasted bun, remember?

The fine bean paste (left) and chunky red bean paste right. Smooth and sweet, encrusted in a fragrant soft bun, the fine red bean anpan feels like non-sticky jam. The chunky red bean anpan holds what you call crunchy peanut butter, where you get red bean husks also in the mash.

Sakura Anpan (SGD1.40)

Slapped adroitly with a salted sakura flower on top, this was how anpan looked like and spread around japan. Ham-alert, anybody? Well no, the pinkish crown is actually paste of white adzuki and sakura. Similar in taste and texture to the sakura mops of the new taiyaki, sakura mochi flavour. Beany, but bitten sharply with a saucy sweetness, that's what the pretty pink mass tastes like.


P.S. Sakura, the name of the tree itself. More specifically, its cherry blossom, the name of the pink flowers. Extract of a flower, something so pure and symbolizing life, heinous to ingest it?


Green Pumpkin


Cloudy

Halfway when we are growing up, we will have nex in between to join us. Its approach is the 'x'; x to spell xciting, xtravagant, xperience. (Ion Orchard was the suffix ion; fashion, sophistication, temptation). During this december.


Nex is also the place to find green food. Green pumpkin, a japanese bakery, isn't named for sheer poetry. Gratefully, it suggests the things it bakes.


Pumpkin-inspired goods! Pumpkin is added everywhere, effortlessly. A pumpkin croquette sandwich, pumpkin mont blanc, pumpkin anpan and pumpkin seed muffins. The flexibility of pumpkins in recipe!


To propel the statuses of pumpkins, artifices are laid beside the breads. A rustic christmas, together with the squashes and snow spray. With a green pumpkin cafe also at Shokutsu 10, you can bask inside such air with a cuppa.


And now trepidation on the higher level of its name- there is really green coloured-bread! Green is made with luxury green tea powder carefully folded into bread.


Green bread everywhere! Green pumpkin uses only one weapon, the colour, enshrouding a whole new culture, of richness in detail and aesthetics. Green pumpkin makes it that we walk into bakeries and see bread green, scarcely noticing their effects, just like green grasses on earth.


Green pumpkin (SGD 1.40)

And on the face which launched green pumpkin. In its name the bread is dressed like one, character play with bread. Green frosting suggesting the pumpkin's shell. A ball of dough for the pumpkin's stem.


There is real pumpkin flesh within the pumpkin! Honest, and moist, they give texture to the soft breads of japan. The frosting is delicately laced with the sweetness of green tea. The star is nothing but the fruit itself- pumpkin.


P.S. Green pumpkin has a slogan. What colour is a pumpkin? - Green in Japan.

Black Balloons

Cloudy



The last black balloon I had was the unflated ones, in a package at Borders. From red to green to blue to purple, I do not recall picking a black one from the bouquet of any restaurant, as a young diner. Probably they'd be unwanted, amongst the repertoire of colours.


Yellow and black. And that's all to delineate new york city, the urban and sophistication and The Cafe Cartel. A distinct but classy combination.


Urban Bread Pudding (Top)(SGD 8.50) and Créme Brûlée (SGD 6.20)

The Urban bread Pudding came warm and toasty complex with many sensations; silky for the vanilla ice cream, savoury, for the bread pudding, and soft, with a yielding bite. You could mash/bludgeon/divide the elements any way you want to eat, like Big Breakfast. The raisins were not fat and rum-doused as described, though. The Creme Brulee was chilled, a weaker contrast with the cold ice-cream but creamy and tasty as it should.


Black balloons in conjunction with Christmas and the opening of The Cafe Cartel, nex.

P.S. Yellow, the only colour that remains in RYB and also in CYM(k). Would you pick the yellow balloon, or the black balloon?

Green Bao


Cloudy

If you were a Pau-aficionado, you would know they come in three sizes. The king crown, for the Da Pau- they usually come with a half boiled egg inside. The small crowns, for the Char Siew Pau or meat pau, specifically. The smallest round buns for the sweet-paste paus. You would also know if they were to come in odd colour, it would be the small crown's measurement. Purple, for yam.



To be sitting nonchalant, at any steamer around kopitiams in Singapore. (Even the supermarket-bought ones boost only the purple, yam). They are in the dimension of the small crown, big enough to fill your entire palm. Once, I saw this green one selling in a kopitiam. Before it closed down for good the next day. Next, I saw a yellow one sold at Simply Cafe, Clarke Quay. I wonder if it is still there. Now, at least I got the green's name. Its called Pandan Pau, with regards from NTU.



Months later, from all the previous encounters, appeasement is found when the green pau is not as uncommon as thought! The green is like a stone ready to be picked from the roaring steamhouses, outstanding from all the white ones in the glass.


The bun may be green, yet it tastes plain like the ordinary. The deep-smaragdite paste may be pandan, yet its tastes no different from a sweet-lotus filling. The brain has to try hard to squeeze out some faint kaya or musty pandan flavour from the eating this pau.

P.S. If you venture into the bowels of VivoCity's giant hypermarket, you will also see the green pau being sold! Alas, uncommon, if you do not give up heart.

Green Tree Cupcake


Cloudy

Where there are lots of conversation pieces such as Naan Da Yo?, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bacon, Smart Aleck; BreakTalk and family dresses up as the eccentric character again with seasonal quirks at the end of the year!



Once more BreadTalk and family did not disappoint! Silent Leaf, (in other words 圣诞, Silent Night); makes you Merry and ChocoMint. It is a cake shaped in a green leaf. There are also other miniature icing cupcakes and cookies for sale.


Xmas Theme-CupCake (SGD 3.30)

In a matter of 15 minutes and the cake art is done! The bells and snowman are tiny stencils. When you want lots of icing like christmas cookie, but not cookie-based.


Icing so thick, it grows out. A gathering of all the outer coating of M&M'S on a cupcake. The tree serves as a hard base for the soft cupcake.

P.S. Icing as a filling/centre/flavour of the cake. Cake can just be icing and cake/it can be eaten that way.

Green bubble Pudding

4 Dec, 2010

0-calorie, zip-fat pudding! Heralds all kinds of kids dessert at cold storages. Jell-O, vanilla, custard caramel. Yet their fit nutritional data does not entice more than these cartridges in green.


Vanish: In 02/(20)12
Firstly, its familiar Nestle, packaged similarly like those of Petit in Europe, in detachable cartons of four or six. Secondly its green and green all over with bubbles, portraying the less common flavour- mint, for green.


Aero Mousse Peppermint (SGD 6.15 4S)

Feel the whoosh in green with brown streaks! The brown came in as a surprise, when the dynamic packaging gave way to an unimaginable pudding for its colour and shape and texture- but definitely no brown anywhere.


Its Aero. Feel the bubbles. So what is it exactly like? It is mint pudding with tinges of chocolate, and when you scrape your cutlery over the edges of the dessert, a hissing sound takes over to add dimension to your eating. Put it in your mouth and the mint foam disintegrates, circles of mint breaking down to nothingness. A wonderful technology, and a wonderful technology to add into food!

P.S. Staring at Cadbury Mint Crisp and Mint Bubbly, this must be how they work, also, for the green.