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.

Pink Sushi

Tuesday, April 26   keyboard  


Sunny

One of the sushi you would definitely not choose first, in an open-air counter selling assorted sushi. Because there are just too many slimy orange, bright reds and greens to pick up in your basket, who would waste a chance at this odd looking thing?


Sakura Denbu (SGD 0.70 ea)

If you go and notice it, it is actually called sakura denbu, and is really pink in colour! Denbu is not a new kind of fish or prawn roe, but rather fish flakes or fish powder, coloured by the cherry blossoms for this case. Taking it out from the chilled section, it is a bed of hard, sweet sushi rice, layered with a blanket of sweet marinated powder; crunchy like powdered candy. A marinate rather similiar to the tasty, chilled jellyfish found on gunkan sushi.

P.S. That neon pink cast, the sakura gives the denbu a nice pink colour, originally a pale white or brown, to enliven sushi or rice dishes. The same idea as the bright red colouring found in chinese bbq pork meat, to enhance its appearance, and making it more appetizing to look at.

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Black Huat Kueh

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21 Apr, 2011


The huat/fa/hua kueh. A way you can take when your baking skills go a bit haywire. My cupcake blossomed to become a fakueh, or my chiffon cake somehow grew out to become a huat kueh.
So, did the huat kueh grow out of a mass of accidents? Or is it always made to look so ridiculous and spontaneous?


Well, no, certainly big no. Unless its flashing so glossy and black of course. And even so, it is prepared carefully under a specific recipe, all for that a one-millimetre higher rise, a one-micrometre wider smile for the perfect, pretty contested bun-head. The more explosive, bountiful-looking huat kueh, the better. This is actually prerequisite for an 'eastern' cupcake, and not some baker's taboo on blown-up cakes.


Dark, dark huat kuehs. So impenetrable like the infinity they are like little devils rubbing their hands in glee that you cannot figure out who and what they are. Oh well because one has not seen huat kuehs coloured so deeply before. When huat kuehs are seen for prosperity and gaiety; happy, colourful, and bright, associating with softness, lightness and airiness.


So it can be quite bizarre for huat kuehs to be created in such a colour. If it were biscuits, muffins or candies one would scoff and pronounce liquorice, chocolate or something. But guess what? Have a change in skin/perspective, take the glutinous rice and flour aside, isn't the huat kueh the same as a muffin? While cupcakes can come in chocolate and chocolate dark chocolate, why can't these too? Just because it is 'asian'. (?)



Belgium Chocolate Fakueh (SGD 3.50)

So yes, this huat/fakueh is chocolate, and (like the chocolates), this fakueh is dark chocolate! A slant from dark chocolate is belgium chocolate. So what does belgium chocolate taste like? Upon first bite, the huat/fakueh is truly; chocolately, which later develops into bitterness with a hint of savouriness. It is like sea-salt chocolate which is truly addictive, not to mention in a carbohydrate moister and chewier than the usual muffin.

P.S. Why not? Huat kuehs in black do really come in a flavour/taste! {Unlike its light brown or green counterparts, in which colour comes to the huat kueh for nothing. (Even if it was brown sugar for the browns, it still defines an 'original' huat kueh; plain, or tasteless.)} Colour which comes to the huat kueh for some sense; full-bodied flavour.



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Pink Flower Bun

Thursday, April 21   keyboard  


Sunny

The Sakura Matsuri in the month of May, the last thing you would need is a sakura breakfast. Breakfast where not just sweets, candies and rice, bread also becomes pink.


One of the 'asian' ways of dealing with bread- bread pumped from a dynamic mould, and painted in some jubilant colour. This bread is pink because of the cherry blossoms.


Sakura Iro (SGD 1.00)

Bread so pink that your skin- and all other breads suddenly pales in comparison. The same refined quality as with the sakura rice, cakes and mochi. This japanese anpan is shaped into a flower, with a salted sakura flower pressed in the middle, besides being pink and sakura-flavoured in its filling.

P.S. The sakura anpan, an alarm sounding from the rest of the anpans. It is notably fresh in a pink and white combination; white bean paste, used in its filling. Unlike the rest of the breads which holds a default red bean/anko. A distinctive marker for the filling of white bean, because the starchy coarseness of this white bean would hold a sturdier complement than the red bean for the delicate sakura.


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TWG

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20 April, 2011

Pass the Basement one of ION orchard, where all becomes less packed and chaotic, are gilded pillars and marbled floors. It is like diving out of the water's surface with an oxgen mask- a total change in atmosphere, solemn, statuesque high-end salons which marks ION orchard's distinctive international luxury fashion.


And of course amidst all this dour splendour lies a curious little place. Full of scrambling staff and adorable diners, who are willing to crowd together at close proximity seeing each other's orders within nose range. Something quite bizarre in the middle of the shopping mall, where a procession is on the way almost every time you walk about it, behind the translucent screens.


At TWG, it is not some archaic place where it sells nothing but a cup of obsolete tea, absurd with a terrible long list of tea and their descriptions. In line with the 21st century, there is also the contemporary set-luch or tea-time set menu for value-dining. You can choose any number of croissant, macaron, scone, muffin, madeleine, financier to accompany your TWG tea, making any combo meal you want. With TWG tea jelly, and whipped cream, of course, to go with them.


Napoleon Tea & Caramel (Black)
1837 Black Tea & Blackcurrant (Fuchsia) (SGD 2.00 ea)

At TWG macarons are here to stay. There are around 8 different kinds of macaron, pink for rose tea, brown with brown cream for earl grey, white for moroccan mint tea, royal purple for grand wedding tea, yellow for lemon bush tea, dark brown for camelot tea, and of course this black for napoleon tea and fuchsia for black tea.

P.S. Why is there black at TWG? Because TWG intend to design its macarons reflecting its series of tea. (And not after some fruit, nut or famous flavour. Though inside the creams may be infused with a complimenting subject that goes well with its 'tea'. ) Thank goodness, for black tea.

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Cherry Blossoms

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Apr 20, 2011

It may be raining but flowers are blooming inside. At its usual period cherry blossoms are blossoming again in full splendour.


And once again, like every other time, it touches us as if this is our first time seeing it, opening as if its its first time flowering; like there is no tomorrow.



This season is an exceptional one, because it reminds us that Japan is not dead. Even with one part gone; the others, like the cherry blossoms, are still functioning and alive, reminding us of how a body goes on even if a limb is lost.


Dashimaki (SGD 4.80)

Everything goes on normal here. The dashimaki is warm and fragrant, not salty at all that you wonder if the chefs did season this egg omelette at all, or were eggs so tasty in the first place. Accompanied with cooling grated radish, atop a spectacular plate of speckled pink. Resonating the cheeriness of the place, and cheeriness of the egg.

P.S. Not many things in this world are pink. Pink is red, and white. Like a common strawberry, unless it is in touch with some form of dairy. So is this plate. It reminds me of the unstable nature of the warm colour pink.


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Pink and green pretzel

Wednesday, April 20   keyboard  

Apr 19, 2011


Around the country there is this famous name everywhere. Auntie Anne's. Which brings together another kind of good from a different culture and food concept. Amongst the sea of international street snack stalls embraced and patronized by the locals.


It is not a fast-food or japanese fad, but the 90s British- pretzels! A break from the swarming assortment of doughnuts or do-nots, in predictable shape, fashion and colour; this is baked bread which is good for your heart. Hand-rolled soft bread laced into the shape of a heart, or fondly an angel's halo. 1 gram of fat without butter, and zero trans fat guaranteed.


Zesty Roselle (Left) and Seaweed (Right) (Speciality) (SGD 2.70 ea)

Fashionably dressed, they come in basic, and premium(exotic) flavours too. That is rather eye-popping and not for the faint-hearted. Your bread roll painted in pink, or a mossy green. And one of the most natural delightful set of paintbrushes, that you'd never associated with colour: pink for sour plum powder, and green for seaweed chuckles.


Mm. Burnished chewy bread that is generously coated with seaweed flakes, the seaweed lingering with a savoury garlic taste. It is satisfying and filling. How are the pretzels made? Left toasty on the shelves; upon the commands the auntie will clamp and dip them vigorously into their containers of sparkling waters- the plum powder or seaweed flakes.

P.S. Everybody should have a chance and go at these pretzels, once in a lifetime. To be encapsulated in this different vibrant culture. And for the wondrously purplish-pink hued pretzel, it is dabbled in the most exquisite powder, sour plum, explaining that intriguing sight and its name zesty roselle. Roselle? Because without the help of roselle (a plant), the sour plum powder would not become rosy in colour, but staying off as white; famously known as the tasty substance found atop guavas.

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Pink slosh

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Sunny

It has gone through many stages with us. The weird, like the orange; the wacky, like the macadamia nut; and the funny, like the winter melon. After a few rounds from candyland and back, it is back to a more simple, tranquil point.


Strawberry (Left) and Peach (Right) (Small/Regular) (SGD 2.30 ea)

A lovely pink colour in an equally comforting flavour, strawberry, and the longest standing flavour besides original for Yami Yoghurt, peach. Their fruity nectars so tried and tested with the tartness of frozen yoghurt that one does not raise any doubts or opinions on these flavours. Also, at the the strawberry's pink and the peach's peach.

P.S. The only time where the entire cup is doused in one colour, and it gets away, being that, existing in another hue. Yes, like the famous strawberry milk, swishing at its edges in pink, if not it would be too startling in a complete white colour. The smoothie's effect, on us, alleviating our hostility to colour.

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