Sugar and Shirts

Whos familiar with Threadless? Okay, not sure what Im referring to? Well, its the super awesome online community where members can submit t-shirt designs and have them put to a public vote. Winning designs are printed and sold on Threadless.com and the winning designers receive cash prizes and store credit. Cool. Fun. Addictive.

But why am I telling you this?

Heres why.

A couple of years ago, Chris Cardinal launched Threadcakes, an online cake competition where you can transform any printed Threadless t-shirt design into cake. And there are tons and tons of designs for you to choose from. Winning cake designs are chosen in two categories. 2-D and 3-D and cash and other prizes are up for grabs. So if you like sugar and shirts, this could be for you. Just bake the cake yourself and take take pictures of the process. If you want to see some examples, take a look at the pictures below. Just click on the links and youll see step-by-step photos for the designs on threadcakes.com. I have to say, it was really hard to pick some examples to show you, so I stuck with shirts that had a food theme. But trust me, there are tons of other great designs from super cute to cool and even a little creepy.

For more info visit Threadcakes.com. Deadline to enter is August 15th, 2011

One more thing, Im one of the judges this year and Im beyond excited to see what amazing creations people come up with. Hope some of you enter. And WIN!!!

Examples:

T-shirt: Cookies Love Milk by Jess Fink

Cake: Cookie Loves Milk by Lien Sanchez

T-shirt: Sugar Land by Andreas Krapf

Cake: Sugar Land by Kim Rountree

T-shirt: Ice Cream Cheerleading Stunt by Ava Marie Guerrero

Cake: Ice Cream Cheerleading Stunt by Kaitlin Flannery

T-shirt: Youve Got Some Splainin To Do by Andy Wilhite

Cake: Youve Got Some Splaining ToDo by Jennifer Roberts

T-shirt: Make Yourself at Home by Scott Bartlett

Cake: Make Yourself At Home by Kandy Cosstick

Okay, barely food related, but there are cute bunnies and one with an ice cream cone.

T-shirt: Catburger by Philip Tseng

Cake: Catburger by Katie Robinson

Poor kitties.

T-shirt: A Piece of Cake by Philipi Tseng

Love this design.

Cake: A Piece of Cake by Lien Sanchez

So, whose up for the challenge?
Holler if youre a cake decorator or maybe just a t-shirt wearer. Either way, Id love to know which design you like.

Here are some of my fellow judges. Seriously, I couldnt be in better company.

Natalie Slater Bake and Destroy
Jennifer McHenry Bake or Break
Me Bakerella
Nicole Baking Bites
Jen Yates Cake Wrecks
Mary Alice Charm City Cakes/Ace of Cakes
Rachel Kramer Bussel and Nichelle Stephens Cupcakes Take the Cake
Robyn Lee Serious Eats
Chris Cardinal Threadcakes
Jen Yu Use Real Butter

The Salad Bar

Are you a "Salad Person"? I admit I'm not :P But recently I discovered a place that make me change my impression to salad, I begun to LOVE my salad!

Various of toppings you can added to your salad ranging from nuts, raisins & dried fruits. With these topping, our salad become less boring, right?


Fresh greens~

The Salad Bar been around at Damansara Uptown for more than 1 year, prides on their creations of colourful & tasty salad.

Walls adorned with photos with myriad of colours.


Simple furniture, a bit cramped ~


Magazines for your reading pleasure


Nutrition facts pasted on the wall




Extensive & clear menu wrote on whiteboard.

We opted for set meal that day.

Juice Set 3 (RM 12.50) which consisted of a sandwich of your choice + side salad + orange juice.

Fresh orange juice, pure & concentrated.


Side Salad ~ Fresh & crunchy greens topped with apple & mango cubes. I like they use yogurt as dressing which is more healthier *love*




Sausage and Cheese Sandwich
Ensemble of gooey melted cheese, sausages, sliced tomato & cucumber & lots of romaine lettuce.

Souper Set 7 (RM 10.00) consisted of pasta dory carbonara + soup

Soup of the day ~ Carrot Soup
Thick & dense flavor but we prefer creamy version of soup :P (I know creamy is not healthy, blek~~)

< img src="http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr215/miumiu78/miumiu78/IMG_4630.jpg" alt="" border="0" />
Pasta Dory Carbonara
This creamy pasta definitely win our vote! (told you I love cream!) Come with generous serving of diced dory, chili flakes on top give it a spicy twist too~ Oh, did I tell you whole wheat pasta was used? So I can enjoy my favorite pasta with additional goodness of fibre!


Hot Black Coffee (RM 4.00)

You can customize your "OWN" salad by choosing the greens, topping & dressing. Interesting & attractive enough to GO GREEN?

The Salad Bar

No.41, Jalan SS 21/60
Damansara Utama
46350 Petaling Jaya
Selangor D.E.

Tel: 03-77221742

Thai Food @ Restaurant Chef Choi, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

Thai food in a Chinese restaurant?


Yeah, you heard right....





The owners of Chef Choi are extremely adventurous when it comes to food. Instead of just focusing on Chinese food as their name would suggest, it's literally anything that they love to cook and eat, that is served here.


Thus, you find Western classic desserts like crepes suzette, creme brulee mingling among steamed Soon Hock fish or Hokkien noodles in the menu. We recently sampled their Thai food and from what I hear through the grapevine, there's talk of a BBQ menu as they have outfitted the kitchen with a rotisserie BBQ.





Since their main focus is not Thai food, the items featured from this particular dinner are by special order.


The dinner struck a chord among us as each particular dish had a specially concocted sauce that was utterly delicious. One of my friends G, who loves her Thai food hijacked the sau! ces and was literally drinking it down.





We started dinner with the Kai Sam Yang (fresh lettuce and dried shrimp in Thai style) - a variation of mieng kham whereby lettuce leaf was used instead of the usual betel leaf. It's simple as 1-2-3 to eat this.


Just lay a lettuce leaf on your palm, fold it to resemble a cup and start adding the goodies in it. You get a choice of tiny deep-fried aromatic prawns, galangal, chillies, lime and onions. Drizzle the Thai chilli sauce, a mixture of fish sauce, chillies, vinegar and lime that has all the nuances of a Thai dish. Shape into a money bag and pop into the mouth.





Next was the Nam Prik Kapi (fresh vegetables served with Thai shrimp sauce). Loved the pungent aromas of this sauce laced with Thai belacan. We could not get enough of the deep fried eggplant, blanched four angle beans, long beans, cucumbers and white cabbage.Who said vegetables are boring should give this dish a try.





Next was an unusual dish, kung cheh nam pla (prawn in fish sauce). Super fresh estuary prawns are served raw with an addictive sauce laced with fish sauce, lime, garlic, chillies and sugar.


Even though my tongue tingled from the chillies, I could not get enough of this sauce that I was literally drowning my crunchy sweet tasting prawns with it. My friend G kidnapped this sauce after a while as she could not get enough of it. I kinda suspected she was drinking up the sauces quietly in her corner of the table.





Then, it was a classic Thai dish, the tod mun pla (Thai fish cake). It's done beautifully here as each fish paste patty is juicy and bursting with flavour. Chopped long beans added a nice textural crunch.


Another classic was the yam pla duk foo (deep-fried fish with mango chilli sauce). Usually made from catfish, they had used siakap instead. No complaints as the deep-fried fish was beautifully light, flaky and crispy. It's Splashie Boy's favourite Thai item and he kept eating this "floss" like dish, drizzling over the mango chilli sauce that was more sweet vs spicy.





Our stomachs were groaning but we were almost reaching the end. I didn't expect it but the served my favourite food item, poo nam prik prao (crab with Thai basil and chilli). Local mud crabs were used so they had a sweet unbeatable taste that no Sri Lankan or Indonesian crab can ever imitate. It was again very aromatic with the Thai basil while the sauce was on the sweeter side. I wished I had more time to slowly pick through the crab but it was time for the piece de resistance.


Oh, I almost forget another dish not of the Thai genre but a preview of the BBQ menu. The full slab of juicy grilled pork ribs. Really good stuff that we had to use our fingers to enjoy each morsel of it.





The dinner had started out as a request for Thai duck noodles, a specialty of the owner. Rather than just serve us the noodles, it became a full blown Thai meal.


We had left crucial stomach space for this dish and I'm glad we did. The broth was light yet fragrant from the pork and duck bones. It came packed with shredded duck, bean sprouts and incredible sin in the form of fried lard cubes and crunchy pig's skin. We also tried various noodles - the usual Thai kuey teow, Chef Choi's own egg noodles and beehoon. I preferred the egg noodles as it seems to absorb more of! the bro th compared to the Thai kuey teow noodles. Others had varying opinions. At one time, the room was silent from everyone slurping down their incredibly tummy satisfying noodles.


The meal ended with another classic, the tad thim krob (red rubies dessert) with water chesnuts and jackfruit in a coconut milk broth.

Restaurant Chef Choi
159, Jalan Ampang
Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03- 2163 5866

(Non halal. House next to Pelita Restaurant. More pictures are in my Flickr set. Remember to pre-order the Thai food.)

* This meal was by invitation from the owners of Chef Choi as a preview of their Thai food menu.

Green Papaya @ Stanley St East, Brisbane

Ever since I left home and started to get used to the concept of paying rent, I realised that my eating out patterns have changed tremendously. For starters back in Malaysia, I wouldn't mind paying RM50 (AUD 15-17) per pax for a normal weekend lunch or a RM100 (AUD 33-35) for a nice catch up dinner (not that it can buy you much these days).


Comparatively, I earn the same amount now in AUD but to splurge more than AUD 30 per pax seems almost exclusive to celebrations especially when our usual eating out doesn't seem to exceed AUD 20 per pax.


With that thought stuck in mind, that night, I suggested we go out for a nicer dinner at Green Papaya.


Having heard that this is a place to go for Thai and other South East Asian cuisine, there were some expectations although having not eaten good Thai food in what seems like a century, that level was never going to be very high.

It's been a long while since I seen a proper setting.

In some ways, it was good that the Gang I eat with joined us, so we could order a few more dishes to share.

The Tamarind Fish was well balanced with sweet and sour notes, brilliant start to a meal.

The Pad Kangaroo was exciting on paper; letting you imagine a jumping animal on your plate while in reality, we are really doing the nation a favour by eating some of it before they conquer the country like the Apes. The lean meat was thankfully not over-cooked and the curry that went with it was delicious without numbing your tongue.

This may look like a plate of fried rice but don't let the looks deceive you. In fact, this is a plate of Tahu Telur, silk soft tofu wrapped with egg and deep fried to a crisp, served with a sweet (almost rojak-like sauce, for those who know what I am talking about). Very nicely done, probably even better than the ones I get in Malaysia.

Not ordering a roast duck curry in a Thai restaurant is akin to not ordering Sweet and Sour Pork in a Chinese Takeaway for me. It is crucial and failure to not order it, causes a mental war in your head, with the question, should I or should I not. Served in a pretty pineapple, this was really scrumptious, with the only question in the head; do they recycle the pineapple for the next person?

What looks like an otak otak is a chicken mousse which was very mild in flavour but fragrant to the nose. For those who can't eat spicy, this is the dish to order.

I have friends who are in the transfer pricing business and all I hear from them is benchmarking margins, profits and etc. With me, I benchmark the quality of Pad Thai when I go to a Thai restaurant. Above average I would say, not the best I have had but certainly a good contender.


While Green Papaya doesn't win any awards for big portions or cheap pricing, it does deliver a good experience by serving good Thai cuisine and yet has a good enough vibe for a romantic date, with a casual setting to catch up with a few friends.

Verdict: 4 stars out of 5 stars. This place seems to be the place for Thai food for me but if there's any place that you think serves even better Thai food in Brisbane, let me know!

Day 1 - United Kingdom Here We come for a Holiday

A plan to go to UK for a holiday finally materialised, we took AirAsia & headed to Stansted London. A long 13 hours non stop flight from Kuala Lumpur.

Went to this little country town called Little Hallingbury which is about 20 minutes drive from Stansted London Airport.

We checked in at Bonningstons Guest House for the evening and dined at a pub approximately 200 yards away, The George.

Fish & Chips was the best among all the dishes on our table. The haddock fish was fresh and truly a typical English food.

We had also pork, Beef

a lamb chop

and a home made burger with bacon & cheese.

As Asians we love our spicy taste. The dinner was good and memorable.

Of course not forgetting the English beer @ The George.

A simple breakfast @ Bonningtons Guest House at the attic before we head to Edinburgh.

We enjoyed the beautiful scene of Little Hallingbury.