Sin Kee Hung Hiong Pia

I'm usually not a big fan of hiong pia but this little buggers from Kuantan are really really excellent.. Most pll that i know usually claims that Taiping Hiong Pia is the best across the whole of Malaysia but Sin Kee Hung's are a few leagues better than most taiping hiong pia that i'd tasted so far.

Fragrant, sweet aroma of caramel and a perfect pastry crust..not too flaky, not too thick, just perfect....
Go try them if you came across any of this SKH hiong pia..
marvellous

Last seen a pack of SKHHP is retailed at RM8 across jusco, albeit in a different packaging.

Green Leaf@Subang Jaya, SS15

Demona: From outside, this restaurant hardly catches your attention. In fact, within a glance, it looked like any other uninteresting chinese kopitiams. Do not be fooled by its outer appearance, hungry food goers out there, for everything that lies within these rolled bamboo shades will get your salivas dripping!

It was fairly packed inside, mostly with patrons who seemed to know that this place offers fairly good home cooked hakka food.

Demona: We ordered a buttery, fried french toast, served with anchor butter and honey. This dish was average as french toast can't go any more wrong unless the bread was cooked too oily. In fact, we lazy asses could easily make this at home, but we've decided to burn some extra RMs on the easy way out. RM 4.50

Demona: We both thoroughly enjoyed the nasi lemak, especially the sambal anchovies! They were sweet, spicy, gooey.. and strongly reminded me of the sambal anchovies from the nasi lemak which I ate in Taiping's Kacang Soya shop, a longggggg, longgggggg time ago (back when I was 13 or 14). The shop is no longer there now.
The beef rendang was tender, spicy and coated with thickened gravy. An oriental feel from the usual malay style cooked beef rendang that we usually eat.
What makes a chinese style nasi lemak different is the 'ah cha' serving (preserved vegetables). However, I think mom's version wins this over anytime. I'm sure Dogma's skillful chef mom can also easily beat this.

Verdict: Although the price of the food here is slightly above the average kopitiam price, the added value came from the home cooked feel of the whole thing: food, ambience, friendliness of the owner. I now understand how Green Leaf manages to sustain its regular customers... it brings them back to the memories of eating their favourite comfort food as if they were back home again.

Chipster Potato Chips Sour Cream Onion

Tough times calls for a budget cut in snacks expenditure. Our in-house CFO, Demona has vastly changed her grocery list since the economy climate turned gloomy. Off were the expensive but yummy Kettle's, Doritos, etc and In are the local made, Chipster Potato Chips.

Previously we tried the spicy flavour and it is indeed packing a hell of a spiced up flavour. The Sour Cream & Onion flavour did well as well. However, the chips were a tad crunchy for my liking thou, if i need to pick a few bones about it.

Nicolas Potel Vosne Romanee 1er Cru 2001

Nicolas Potel Vosne Romanee Malconsorts Premier Cru 2001:
I got 2 bottles of this when my team won the burgundy tasting competition in late 2005. Wow.. this bottle has evolved much since tasting it in 2005. A very complex nose of dark cherry, wood, some earth and sour tone. Delicious. The palate carry very good weight with density. Pure but with nice mouth feel. Throughly enjoyable. Demona love this very much as well and we finish the whole bottle in no time.. I cant wait to see how my last bottle will going to be in the next 3-5 years. Beautiful

Dogma's humble chef skills for Demona

Demona: Iron chef Dogma was in a mood to get some sizzling' wok fumes action going! I ain't complaining at all... free meal, zero cost, healthy and fed into the horse's mouth itself!

Demona: Some sexy marination going on with this pork loin cutlets! Seasoned with some herbs, spices, peppers and olive oil! Ooh lah lah!

Demona: Time to get these boys all fired up! Into the wok they went! Lying on these soft, juicy bed of caramelised onions! To add an extra 'zing' to the whole package, tiny squares of smoked bacon bits were added in too! Amazing smoked burnt meaty aroma filled the kicthen.

Demona: Sinful meaty stuffs aside! We 'healthily' steamed some brocolli as our side dish.

Demona: The other half pack of bacon bits went to join the mushroom clan! The onions and bits of tomatoes created a sweetened finish to the sauce. I loveeeeeee this one. slurpilicious!

Hmph... Iron chef Dogma got my hands dirty after all. After all the sweaty, hard work of creating these delicious dishes.. the kitchen sink was packed.. packed with dirty cooking utensils. Who will wash it? Going once.. going twice...... going three times....

ME of course! *Groansssssssssssssssssss*

Laksa @Jusco Midvalley

This gotta be the greatest hidden Gem in Midvalley. Remotely located at Jusco Midvalley, this jusco stall served up one yummilicious laksa for the shoppers around.

The air is filled with a beautiful aroma of asian spices, clove and laksa flower...Just the right wake up call to our hungry wungry tummies (the pillows/bedsheet section of the jusco department store was right around the laksa stall......Dun be surprised if you got a laksa packed comfy pillow from there!)

NAsi Lemak: The chilli is a tad too spicy for me and too oily. However Demona the chilly globber still marches bravely on and sapu them clean. The Beef rendang was pretty savoury. nothing to complain about!

Laksa: Spicy and so full of true laksa flower flavour and a limey zest.. This laksa sings right to your hollowed tummy! at rm 5.90 it aint cheap but the quality is gooooood!

Mama Chops&Papa Grill@Dataran Prima, PJ

Demona: Many things had been happening, all too quickly. Both Dogma and I branched out towards new careers, and the transition has yet to settle down. I hope the Almighty will guide us to reunite soon. We haven't had much opportunities to tummygrowl together for a while now. Even when we did, we've become more careful in our venture to please our taste buds, due to the hike in prices of just about everything, including food.

We wanted to have a decent western meal dinner but not having to burn a hole in the pocket. After giving some deep thoughts, I suggested to Dogma on Mama and Papa, a western food place that I'd visited some few years ago, which did leave me with a fairly good impression then. Since Dogma is now a permanent KL-ite, and has not tried this place before, we fixed our tummies on this.


Demona: Dogma was in a mood of sipping down some slurpilicious, hot, creamy soup on a wet, chilly, cold rainy night. His choice for the night: lentinus mushroom soup. RM 4.50. The soup, was ultra peppery! We could taste bits of lentils and mushrooms in the soup. Fairly good effort from these guys, at least the soup was not watery.

Demona: Greedy-licious me chose a big, big, big meal. Chicken Maryland. RM 11.80. With a big piece of bread crumb coated deep fried chicken fillet, crinkled cut french fries, a long sausage and some coleslaw. The coleslaw was quite enjoyable, we could taste that it was home made. The others, were average. Not for the health, cholesterol conscious, weight watcher guys out there. But for us, hey! we ain't complaining! *munch*munch*

Demona: Dogma seems to always be drawn to fish dishes. Sometimes, I do feel bad for stopping him from ordering, especially dory dishes. Maybe the thought of seeing a pack of two giant chunks of dory fish, selling at RM 7 in grocery stores and seeing a 2 figure price on a dory dish just totally puts me off. This time, I gave Dogma leway to order his favourite fish dish. Gladly, the fish did taste quite fresh. Now and then eating, I caught Dogma smiling widely, chewing down his lil' fishy.


Demona: The bill came up to RM 27.60.. enjoyable meal, I would say, with a lil' home cooked feel to the place and the food. We probably would not be eating here often, but when our craving for western food rises, this will definitely be one of the places that we will consider to satisfy our needs. Anyone out there who knows where in KL is good and decently priced (economically, I mean) for western food?

superlicious lemon fingers by demona

Each of them are of pure gold
Each bite strike you as a blissful euphoric heaven
This is Demona's Superlicious Lemony Fingers.....
100% home made, 100% passion and 200% effort....

The lemon fillings are not too sweet ( plus point!), moist, and blend well together with the cookies base... The overall package was a dense lemon & citrus attack to you palate, held together by well defined, moist lemon fillings.

Awesome...

Hong Kee Tim Sum @Damansara Jaya

Demona and I pop by this dimsum place for breakfast on a lazy sunday morning. Hong Kee TIm Sum is located at Damansara Jaya and supposed to be a very popular dim sum place..
Judging by the hordes of people patronising it that morning. It is definitely popular..

Upon reaching the shop, we were distracted by a few groups of young boys who starred at any pretty girls that walked into the shop (demona included).. Somehow a simple dim sum session turned into a eyeball-harassment encounter with testorones filled young bulls.

Bulls aside, the CSP was quite normal. Nothing to shout about with sweetish charsiew laced filling in a soft, damp dough. Average at best.
Oily Loh Mai Kai. The loh mai kai is extremely oily and resulted in me having severe acid reflux for the next couple of days. Price of Loh Mai Kai = RM2.80 Price of Medication: = RM 28

Bamboo shoots fritters. So so . Oily and oily.
Yam Cake: Oily Oily. Yucks.


The quality of the food pale in comparison with the testorone filled bulls on parade....
No more next time for this dim sum outlet!

Mango smoothie courtesy of Aileen

Demona: Nights after nights I crave for Aileen's home made fruit smoothies. After drinking this, I never wanted to drink fruit smoothies from anywhere else anymore, except hers! Besides the generous serving of blended fruits (not to forget, of excellent quality), the sweetness and creaminess was always just nice too. And another thing, this may sound slightly disgusting, but her smoothie not just tastes great, it is one of the most natural ways to clear the body's bowel system also! One mugful of this healthy treat, the next morning you kiss your bowel storage bye bye! And yeah.. you'll come out of the loo with a big happy "cleansed" smile!

Demona: Just look at the amount of mango slices that she had added, on top of low fat milk and a big cupful of yogurt. All natural sweetness! This portion could yield 3 mugfuls of fruity wuity, slurpilicious mango smoothie!

Demona: Every spoonful was just.. EUPHORIC! Sniffs.. Aileen's now away till next year for her two week year end holidays. Besides hanging out with her, I'm surely gonna' sick! Sick being addicted this euphoric, sweet, all natural drug.

After jog dinner@Sumo House

Demona: *tummies jiggle, tummies jiggle* It was time.. to work those jiggles out! Mr. Ambitious Dogma and Mrs. Ambitious Demona decided to jog from Commonwealth to Sunset Way, to have a lil' Daily Scoop treat instead of using our black jazzy rider there.

It was one LONG walk/ jog alright. Upon reaching Buona Vista, our legs were showing all signs of "time out!" already. Every bus stop, every passing bus was a big temptation for us. Thanks to Dogma's commando motivation, "Hoik! Hoik! Do not give up. We must finished what we've aimed for!", we finally jogged our way to Daily Scoop.

A good 1 HOUR of working out, only to pile back the calories with a good 5 MINUTES of clearing 3 scoops of ice cream. If that wasn't bad enough, we some how walked to Clementi and had another cheap meal at Sumo House. (Okay, okay .. at least we shared one meal's portion, alright?)



Demona: Bread crumb fried fish drizzled with thousand island sauce. Average taste, for the fish and for the sauce, but we couldn't ask for more.. after all, it was cheap!


Demona: Our favourite economical good-for-value 2.90$ katsudon set! Pheng Leng Cheng!

Demona: Our dinner was cheaper than our dessert earlier. Haha. Although we shared the meal, it was enough to make us full. Sumo house.... satisfied!

Verdict: Before you guys start shaking your heads in front of the computer over the level of our "discipline", let me set things straight.

No, we did not take a bus back to Commonwealth... we walked all the way back again from Clementi. We almost! But we did not. So I guess, I could still call this ... a GREAT work out?

Great work out = 1 hour walk - ice cream - sumo house + 1 hour walk ?

Or did we just negated all our workout efforts? Hmmmmmmmm... *tummies jiggle*

Pasta Brava with the Czar

We had a "Casual Dinner" ( by the Czar's standard) at Pasta Brava recently to replace the normal Thirsty Thursday at the burrow. Even thou the banking industry is bleeding now but my banking executives friends are clearly not affect by the bloodshed! SPEND SPEND SPEND!

Picture above shows dishes of appetiser that we ordered. The parma ham and rockmelon was good. Mozzarella and tomatoes was quite a let down. However, the king of the appetisers were the sauteed mushroom.ULTRA excellent with smoky flavours and saltish bacon..They wiped the dishes clean before i managed to take my camera out.

Braised Lamb Rack with Green Peas in Redwine sauce: I'd ordered this and the meaty was very juicy and sweet. The red wine sauce wasn't very loud but rather pretty subtle and harmonios with the lamb meat. Good effort but costly at 38sgd.

Chicken in mushroom cream sauce: Ordered by Demona, i was surprised that she did not ordered anything ultra MEATY as she is our in house T-REX monster. NGARM NGARM NGARM. Only... MEAT.....willl make her happy. The chicken was normal and nothing to shout about but i wiped the baked potatoes clean from her plate.. Pretty yummy, tender and filled iwth charred aroma. I like!
Tiramisu: It was so so and slightly on the sweeter side. Not my cup of tea. I believe OSO made a better rendition of Tiramisu, thou without the addition of alcohol thou ( the true original version, according to the Corleone)
The Czar sponsored the wines for the night. Villero Barolo Riserva 1998.
Did not have much impression except this wine was very clean and lean on the palate, with raspberry/cherry note on the nose. Some oak appear on teh nose as well. Elegant but not too complex.Siro Pacenti Vendemmia 2001 Sangiovese:
This wine is highly rated by Robert Parker with the score above 94pt if i'm not wrong. Good complexity on the nose, of dark flowers, berrys, leather. Some evolution on the palate, with licorice, tar to black tea. Very enjoyable but still has alot of potential.

We shared the wines with the owner and he was impressed with it.
Overall, Pasta Brava has an excellent ambiance, but the price, a tad high for minnows like me.
:(

Another windfall treat@Aileen

Demona: There are many nights that I yearn... and Dogma yearns (whenever he comes down) for Aileen's amazing home made fruit smoothies. Filled with PURE goodness (and I mean pure, as in truly wikipedia meaning of pure) : Mixture of bananas, strawberries, mangoes, plain yogurt and ice, nicely blended into this heavenly natural sweetened smoothie.

Dogma was starry starry lucky this time around. Aileen was in her smoothie blending mood when he came down. Each of us had a full mug each of Aileen's awesome smoothie. Spoon by spoon, we smilingly slurped this fruity deliciousness down. After finishing the whole mugful of it, Dogma and I were left..... EUPHORIC.

He looked at me, smiled widely with blurry eyes.

I looked at him, smiled widely with blurry eyes.

We were happy high. Not with magic brownies, but with Aileen's EUPHORIC fruit smoothie.

Plan B Indian dinner@Gayathri's, Race Course Road

Demona: *groans* Our favourite Jaggi's was closed for the day. We strolled along the streets of Lil' India on a busy Sunday, the only day and place that gives you a taste of India and you forget that you are, in fact in Singapore. We browsed on a few menus left outside several restaurants and finally, we used our sharpened knife instincts and took a stab into Gayathri's. I've tried here once, but this place was new to Dogma.


Demona: We ordered a garlic naan. Nothing much to shout about. The garlic pang did not complete its job of wacking our colgate breath out.

Demona: Here's the chicken with yogurt curry. I wanted the varuval initially, but it seemed that this particular Sunday just was not out day. The gravy was quite spicy, and the meat was fairly tender, but the portion was a little small. Overall, the dish was slightly above average... ain't the best we've ate alright.

Demona: We ordered a mutton dom briyani. I've asked my fellow Indian colleagues who are big fans of this dish and this place, it seems that the briyani spiced rice and mutton pieces were cooked slowly, layer by layer into fragrant perfection. However, the impression that we had were otherwise. It somehow tasted as if the rice was cooked long ago and warmed up to us right before serving.

And oh yea.. hello? hello? hello? Where's the mutton? Yuuuuuu huuuuuuuuu? I can't see you!

Okay, I'm sorry. I exaggerated. There were several pieces of mutton inside, but honestly.. it was little.

Demona: Apart from its food, I guess the shop didn't do too bad on this aspect. Airconditioned, ample headcount of waiters, window period for food delivery's also quite short. The one thing that really put me off was that, after paying my bill of SGD 16.40 with SGD 17. the waiter forgot to come back with my change. I waited for a long while before going to the payment counter on my own to ask for it. The guy gave an annoyed look and dug back few receipts before to retrieve mine and mumbled quietly in Tamil before giving back my change.

Even threw in a cynical remark, " Your change.... 60cents only, right?"

Yes. 60 cents ONLY. What rubbish. However big or small an amount, a change is a change. If this thing was done at every table, everyday, how profitable it would be. Might as well call change it to a makan place-but-do-not-expect-any-change-given-back eatery.

I reckon that Dogma and I will not be visiting this place anytime soon.

Demona ponders....

Demona: As baking works well as a great therapeutic method for me, recently, my mind has been hit by all corners of ideas, on what's cool to bake, how do I improve on the few recipes I've done and enjoyed savouring every bit of 'em, and for the past few days.. I've been surfing the net, reading blogs, but have not come to a conclusion on what cake I want to bake, and blow the candles off on my coming quarter century birthday.

If you look at it another way, it may seem a little (haha maybe quite) pathetic that you bake your own birthday cake, rather than having people buying a cake with a rip-off price tag from some franchised bakery.... but I am actually quite excited over the idea of baking my own one for the first time this year.

I'll be 25 in a couple of days time. A quarter century years old. Sounds dramatic, haha. But yeah, time flies. I guess we probably say the same every 16th, 18th, 21st, 25th, and 30th, 40th, 50th birthday and so forth.

While driving back home today along the ECP expressway, my mind wandered off. Suddenly, everything surrounding me seemed disconnected from me. A wise man, with stedfast faith taught us today that people still dwell and harp on worldly things that they've forgotten to real meaning of living. We should live as if we only have a few more months to live. It got me thinking... had I been the same too?

I haven't been on my best lately, definitely jeapordised some tummy growling activities, hehehe. Many things had been changing so quickly at one go, I must admit that my level of perserverence sometimes fall down when uncertainties occur. I realise, however glamourous, simple, challenging, rich, poor, difficult life can be, people change, things change, the surroundings change, but all is good if you are happy, and leave the rest to God.

Work is temporary, money is temporary, worldly things are temporary, what is most important is family and people whom you love and care.

I need to find my life's happiness. For this coming quarter century mark, I think I can make do with a little sparks of happiness from:

1) I am still in good health.
2) my own made birthday cake!
3) celebrating it with my best-est girl friend who shares this special day with me.
4) knowing that my family and close friends are all in good health and I'll continue to pray for them everyday.
5) Dogma is adapting and having good progress at his work in KL. It is challenging for us, sumtimes frustration really kicks in... but if he needs to take this step, I will support him morally as I am away.

WAIT! Hmmmmmm... Demona's being emo here. Back to cakie wakies! What cake am I going to bake?

Suggestions!

Chateau Monbousquet Vertical Tasting

I had a superb Monbousquet vertical tasting recently.. First up was the 1994 Monbousquet. Nose was chalky, filled dark flowers, berries, and some sweet alluring perfume...Slight leather emerges after that. However, palate was pretty hollow and finish is short. However, it was very very classic nose and splended to dirnk on its own. The fruits has dropped much and probablyts its getting downhill from next 2 years on. Drink up! Beautiful!
Next up is the 1997 Monbousquet, Similar classic nose like the 1994 but carried more sweet bright fruit. Floral nose. MMMMM.... On the palate is has brighter acid and fruit is in balance. THe mid palate was very hollow and kinda angular. FInish is short with slight heat. However, pretty classic and nice to dirnk....
The 1996 Monbousquet should be great 5 years down the road, thou still rather tight at this point of time ( 12 years of bottle age). Very balanced fruit and acid, indicating long life ahead. nice perfume nose but with heavier dose of blackcurrant in it. Leathery... Ahh.. this is gooood, thou on the more modern style compared to the 94/97
Things started to get too modern for my liking 1998 onwards. Big fruits, heavy body, very very tight even after 2-3 hours of decanting. long finish with high alcohol... Need... To.... Keeepppp...15 more years before poppping another bottle.. The 1998 is huge but still bearable.1999 Monbousquet: Heavy, dark , almost ink like colour. Nose was big with significant fruits, alcohool Very tight body and heavy... Too modern............
2001 Monboesquet: This is ultra heavy and at its infancy. For the 1998/99/2001, keep it in your cellar for another 12 years before even trying to drink it. Too tight and big for my liking. Probably I'll enjoy it 20 years down the road.


Overall, I find the 94 and 97 very sexy and elegant, with classic Bordeaux nose. Good to dirnk it along...
The 1996 was at the verge of going in to the Parkerized league.... but a good balance of both world. It should be very beautiful if you give it a couple more years in the bottle.

However, the 98/99 and 2001 is extremely modern. Big Parkerized Fruit bomb that is not to my liking.. Too extracted.. Probably it will takes a long time to reveal the potential.