I-Cant-Even-Deal-Right-Now Dessert

Alternate titles of this post include:

If You Cancel My Flight One More Time, I Swear To God Ill Eat a King-Size Snickers Bar and Youll Be Sorry (but will you?)

Only A Milkshake Can Fix This

Get That Salad Out Of My Face, Please

I Need A Hug.. no wait I Need French Fries

Seriously. Stop Hugging Me and Please Bring Me Fries (and a King-Size Snickers Bar)

Im Eating My Feelings, and My Feelings Are Granola?

This Is What It Looks Like to Not Eat The King-Size Snickers Bar (and remain sane)

and

Im Being Dramatic

Im happy to do my part, airline people. Ill smash too many close into too small a carry-on suitcase. Ill package together tiny shampoos and a tiny toothbrush into a clear plastic bag so that God and everyone can snoop at my hygiene regime. Ill let you dust my hands for whatever explosive thing it is you think I touched. Ill let you charge me $4.00 for water, as long as you let me stand at your kiosk and read Vogue cover-to-cover for free. Ill stand in your lines of angry people. Ill shove my suitcase in the space that is not enough space for my suitcase. Ill let you show me that seatbelt demonstration, and that vest thing, and mask ordeal. Ill even pretend to ignore the dude thats sitting in the window seat Ill pretend to ignore him as hard as hes pretending to ignore me.

Ill totally do my part.

Your part is to make the plane go into the air, at a high speed! , in the direction it needs to go. If you dont do that. If you make me sit on the plane and pretend to ignore the dude in the window seat, only to tell me two hours later that I need to get off the plane because the flight is cancelled.. thats you not doing your part.

If youre not going to do your part, the very least you can do is a) apologize, b) admit that you totally suck, and c) buy me a milkshake and french fries so that I can angry-eat my feelings.

Right?

The thing is if you know youre about to angry-eat your feelings, you should totally NOT angry-eat your feelings.

In this particular case, I wanted nothing more than a milkshake and french fries, and a cheeseburger, and pizza, and brownies slathered in peanut butter. Instead I made better choices: tart non-fat frozen yogurt, granola with toasted coconut and goji berries, and a yummy dose of maple syrup. Good food feels good. None of it will make your flight fly. Thats real. But (this is what I told myself), you might as well eat something that will satisfy your angry-eating but not lead to angry-eating guilt.

Other things you might consider: I-Cant-Even-Deal-Right-Now Lunch orChocolate. Whatever.

I-Cant-Even-Deal-Right-Now Dessert

Youll Need:

tart non-fat frozen yogurt

a handful of granola (two hands full, really)

3 tablespoons maple syrup.

Scoop ice cream Sprinkle granola. Drizzle maple syrup. Go!

Setting up a Bridal Shower Dessert Table

Ive gotten some photos of the recent dessert table I did for one of my friends bridal shower. Because her wedding theme colour is green, I decided to use that as a main colour for the dessert table.

We went to The Cooking House in Desa Sri Hartamas to have a private cooking class, to make Chicken Roulade and Croquembouche. So at the same time, I wanted to put my hands on making a dessert table since Ive never made, but always wanted to. So what better timing to do so!

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For the table, I had newspaper clothe lining, fake grass and an entire garden on it. I got pebbles from my house, fresh fruit (pear) and some random cake stands. I actually have most of those things. They are mainly collected over the years for emergency props. LOL I guess it has paid off now.

I usually like to play with some heights, but not symmetrical. So I arranged some flowers, and cupcakes as well. Keeping the cake simple and rustic for this time.

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Its a raspberry lemon velvet ombre cake with white chocolate buttercream frosting! This cake came about when I was trying out a recipe for CRAVE magazine. So I picked up the idea and used! a diffe rent recipe which Im more familiar with and tint it with raspberry puree. (Recipe, another day)

As for where I got those decorative stuffs from

I got alot of wedding printables from Wedding Chicks. (I dont know what would I do without free printables from the internet!!)

Tablewares and decorative props are mainly from Aino Living, Daiso and Ikea.

Newspaper-like cloth is from a sewing shop in Korea near Bangsan Market.

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Almost Married bunting from The Pretty Blog. The paper fan was an idea I plucked from the internet. Not sure where I saw it before but its everywhere !

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This was another idea I saw while googling for kitchen themed bridal shower. I got cheap wooden spoons (like less than RM 5) for each person to write some message for the bride-to-be. I thought it was quite fun and relatable. Some were! really creative in fitting ALLL words on it, some kept it simple. I saw another on Martha Stewarts site where she used plates. Seriously, how is she going to hang up the plates?? Wooden spoons may be a better idea.

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And, who doesnt include this keep calm and signage. Appropriate! as most of the girls joining, are first time cooks!! Well, a keep calm sign is definitely a helpful reminder! You can get it here.

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And I also prepared favours / gifts for everyone to take home. Simple vanilla sugar in spice jars (from Ikea). I have lots of vanilla pods (and sugar, its a staple) so its really very easy to make this as a door gift kinda thing. I printed the tag from The Pretty Blog. They have lots of other ideas such as herb seeds packages, tea bags, windmills and oh so many other stuffs!!

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The event was suppose to start at 2pm but because we wanted to celebrate another friends birthday, we kinda kicked the party started at about 1.30pm. And because its just kinda around after lunch / tea time I decided to prepare some cupcakes (banana) INCASE everyone took longer to prepare and cook, at least we have some snacks. We ended up eating our food at about 5.30pm LOL.. This was a simple banana cake with the same white chocolate buttercream used for the cake, but drizzled with caramel and sprinkled some sea salt.

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The menu. Bride-to-be wanted to learn how to make croquembouche. And the chicken roulade was my input as we really only have 3 hours cooking time, and if were talking about 10 girls cooking together, it aint gonna be fast. LOL. Mason jar graphic was from Wedding Chicks (again!) and I PSed the menu in it.

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I even went all out to print the recipes with little graphics at the side!! The bunting graphic was actually from Wedding Chicks (what, again??) and I basically used only the flag bunting design. These are customizable by colour, to match your theme.

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Serious at work!! Pics are during the final plating of the chicken roulade and assembling the croquembouche! I guess everyone did keep calm!!

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Our chicken roulade with orange salad. very yummy indeed! Recipes, another day la ok. I love chicken roulade LOL, maybe thats why I suggested for the menu. Another that I wish to ma! ke is La mb Wellington. That will take a day of non-procrastination and 100% cooking mode. In the meantime, a simple roulade seems more realistic hahaha

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And the dessert was croquembouche. Needs no introduction. We did in groups of 4 and this was ours.

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This was made by another group. Hell we even made spun sugar! lol, it was kinda exciting watching the girls do so. I mean, Ive done spun sugar alot of times (not to brag but thats the nature of my job) so it was quite a sight to watch when those who havent made tried.

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Last but not, I think it was a job well executed. I cant say the same if it was a cowboy or disco theme. I had most of the props that are suitable for this at home and its just about putting everything into places. So now, anybody wanna hire me for dessert tables set up ?? tee hee hee.

New Dim Sum Menu @ Tai Zi Heen, Prince Hotel KL

Chinese Master Chef Michael Wong and Dim Sum Chef Chong Lim Fong have collaborated their master skills to create new dim sum dishes to complement their existing a la carte dim sum menu in Tai Zi Heen. We were invited there a few days ago to sample these new dishes as well as some old favourites.

Jade dumpling with scallops and prawns

Playing with iOS6 new panaroma function - this is a panaromic shot of Tai Zi Heen restaurant!

We started off our meal with a warming bowl of watercress soup (sai yong choy), double boiled with dried scallop, chicken, red date, sweet almond and mushrooms. It was certainly good and brings back memories of my childhood (mum used to make it for me).

After we finished our soup, we sampled ALL these scrumptious steamed and deep fried dim sum! Dim Sum Chef Chong came out to explain his new dim sum dishes to us.

A soft-spoken man, Chef Chong explains that his dim sum includes traditional Cantonese favorites as well as fusion varieties. When we asked which is hisspeciality, he answers with a smile "all types of dim sum"! Although we took our time to photograph the steamed dim sum, I found that the skin still remained nice and intact - I sometimes find dim sum which has been left out for too long has sticky skin and falls apart but no such problem here. Chef Chong tells me that there are two types of "skin" - one more chewy and his is the softer type, which was to my liking.

The purple spinach dumpling topped with Mexican clam (RM13) was one of my favorites. The prawns were all very juicy with a taut texture. Initially I thought the Mexican clam was julienned mushrooms since the textures were very similar.

The chicken and shrimp dumplings (RM10) filled with mushrooms and topped with tobiko was decent.

I like the crystal dumplings filled with dried sole (har kaw) (RM14) here, the skin was translucent and smooth! Again, fresh, juicy prawns.

Hooray for s! callops, loved the vibrant hue of the jade dumpling with scallops and prawn (RM16). A plump scallop with tobiko sits atop some prawns, very pleasurable to eat indeed!

I enjoyed these "money bags" - beancurd skin treasure purse with chicken and prawns (RM12). The beancurd has soaked up all the nice flavours, presumably of the broth it's been cooked in.

The unagi spring roll sticks with Parmesan cheese (RM18) was definitely a unique addition. Unagi and cheese, pretty brilliant combination I have to say!

This was another favourite of mine (*ahem* somehow 3 pieces found its way into my stomach ;P) - the pan fried crispy pancake filled with prawns and chives (RM12). Crispy pancake, with juicy prawns - I LOVE!

The crispy katafi wrapped prawn rolls (RM14) was studded with Australian mango and served with a wasabi mayo sauce. Thankfully, the sauce was quite mild.

I'm usually not a fan of yam puffs as I do not like the pork filling or the thick yam pastry. However, I found the deep fried yam puff stuffed with salmon and buffalo mozzarella (RM10) pretty decent. The salmon has been pan fried and then shredded (just like floss), then topped with buffalo mozzarella, ikura and dill. Another unique fusion dish.

Do not let the pale outlook of the Yang Zhou fried rice fool you - each rice grain was fluffy and nicely coated with egg, and nicely flavoured.

Chef Chong explains,"This is a traditional Hong Kong roasted duck. The most important thing about this dish is that the skin must be crispy and the meat must be juicy. We use vinegar and maltose to make the skin crispy". And crispy and juicy it was!

How delightful it was to end the meal with the refreshing mango pudding with passionfruit ! sauce (RM12). I was actually quite surprised to learn that mango pudding is deemed a traditional dessert for the Chinese, but Chef Chong has given it a twist by serving it with passion fruit puree.

I can't think of a better way to start your day than having dim sum with the family. On top of the a la carte dim sum menu (available both for lunch and dinner), Tai Zi Heen also offers a "All You Can Eat Dim Sum" menu with where you can enjoy unlimited servings of over 60 varieties of steamed, pan fried, deep fried, baked dim sum as well as rice rolls, congee, rice, noodles, vegetables and desserts. This is available on Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays from 11.30am to 2.30pm for RM65++ per person.

Beautiful sunrise in the morning

Pork-free.

Opening times: Lunch; 12.00 pm - 2.30pm, Dinner; 6.30pm-10.30pm.

Location: Tai Zi Heen, Level 2, Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur, 4 Jalan Conlay, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tel: 03-2170 8888

Website: http://www.princehotelkl.com

GPS Coordinates: 3.150179, 101.714516

Thirsty Indian consumers drive up demand for microbreweries

Beer Hive, Paparazzi and Top Drop @ SSTwo Mall

A roundup of SSTwo's watering holes, kicking off with Beer Hive, a lively, friendly hangout for lovers of pork and beer.

Jelly Belly _ twice-cooked pork belly in garlic soy glaze, lust-worthy and lustrously fatty.

UFO fried bean curd puffs, or "taupok," stuffed with pork and fish. Can't stop munching!

Addictive bar snacks are the way to go: PIGgers, BeerHive's specialty of spice-marinated pork.

WTF nachos, served with house-made savory pork chili and creamy cheese sauce.

We almost ordered this; actually we did, but then we chickened out: Let's Dive _ Tiger beer, served with a diving mask and snorkel. Chug, chug, chug!

Beer cocktails are all the rage here: Guinness Mocha (guinness, kahlua).

Real Man Snakebite (strongbow, tiger, absinthe, ribena).

Beer-haters, rejoice (but why are you here?): regular cocktails and shots are available ...

... as is drinkable wine, sold fortunately by the glass.

Next, Paparazzi, w! hich hea ves with happy customers even on weeknights.

Paparazzi's TV screens flash a non-stop barrage of images of everyone from Beyonce to Lindsay Lohan, portraying them at both their most glamorous and grottiest.

Intrigue Caipirinha and Hpnotiq Mojito. Decent drinks, about RM30 each.

Finally, The Top Drop, which specializes in whiskey (alongside some wine).

On a night like this, acoustic performances of Eric Clapton's "Change The World" and other easy-listening hits might hit the spot.

The Top Drop serves snacks like shepherd's pie and chicken rendang, but we opted for something darker: Ghirardelli chocolate.

Glenmorangie. Much to drink equals much forgotten.

BeerHive, Paparazzi and Top Drop,
SSTwo Mall, SS2 Petaling Jaya.