Beanstro @ Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

I have found a way to record my thoughts as and when, I have any...er thoughts...
Park a "Note" in my iPhone. It has the time and date recorded, and the only drawback is, I can't really attached relevant photos to those thoughts....else, it will be a "draft blog entry" which I was hoping to just copy and paste when I get my hand on a computer.

I've downloaded some Apps that allow blogging to be done on-the-go, but I just like to do it on a computer...and that's old-school for the younger generation eh? I can't imagine when it comes to a day, where a laptop is equate to..say a type-writer ?

Anyhow, I was down in Singapore a couple of weeks ago. It was a pretty good trip...met some friends that I haven't seen for a long time, especially my BFF, Suet! Its cool to catch up with her, on how life after marriage is! :D

Now, I have been complaining about the lack of good coffee around in Kuala Lumpur since my homecoming in Dec 2010...so I thought, I'll find some nice coffee joints in Singapore. While there are The Coffee Connoiseurs chain that I saw along Orchard Road, I believe that there are more less visible hidden gem somewhere, that I'll need to discover...

I didn't have much time in Singapore, but when I was heading to Marina Bay Sands (MBS) to meet my Adelaide buddies, I was feeling light headed...coz I'm hungry....I only had some breakfast earlier and its almost 4.30/5.00 pm when I arrived at MBS.

The MBS is looking really grand and nice, and as I was walking..I saw this coffee place that says "Beanstro". I thought...that's pretty cute...and the place was packed..there's a line of people waiting to be seated! That should be a good sign, eh?

When I finally gotten my seat, and have a look at the menu, I have to say, I was rather disappointed that its just another fancy cafe by The Coffee Bean Company...with a more impressive food menu...

At this point, I'm ravenous......so, I've ordered a Molten Chocolate Cake and a Quiche Lorraine, both are priced around SGD17 and SGD8 respectively. Pretty decent, if you are not spending in RM.

~~~ The Molten Chocolate Cake~~~~
The menu says that the cake will be served with vanilla yoghurt on the side, but it turn out to be whipped cream. I actually took the time to ask for the menu again, to double check...and yea, it says vanilla yoghurt....well, I was just being a pain since I have yet to have any food at this point - mainly because they served the cake without any cutleries.... I have to ask for a spoon.

The texture of the cake is ok...could be more goo-ey and oozing with chocolate sauce, but no complaints on the serving size though..this can be easily shared with 2-3 person, if you are having tea/snacks.

~~~The Quiche Lorraine~~~
Once again, the quiche was served with no cutleries...I supposed, in Beanstro, the customers are to eat with their hands ? Not that I mind, really...if the food that I ordered are not piping hot, and came out fresh from the oven, unless I want to intentionally burn myself...

It was a nice touched, to get a nicely-heated quiche...from the texture of the pastry, its pretty obvious that the quiche is not freshly baked, its re-heated. Which is fine....really, no customer would want to wait for 30 mins for a little quiche to be freshly baked...

Loved the warm and nicely baked tomato on the side, which cuts through the cheesy taste of the quiche...and there's some turkey bacon in the quiche too.

I have to say, that they took the time to include nicely dressed salad on the side, while most cafe would have just chuck in a few lettuce leave and say that's it! Its a plus point, given that they are pretty busy then....

I had the brew of the day, which is pretty ok....nothing to complained about.

Just for the record, I wolfed down the quiche pretty quickly, before moving on to the Molten Chocolate Cake....and sad to say, I only managed to eat a few spoonful of the cake...as I have to leave some space in the tummy for dinner with my friends from Adelaide!

Overall, the whole experience is pretty ok.....but I would have tried something that's not from The Coffee Bean / Starbucks next time!

my favourite roast

once upon a time, when i live my life in far-far-away, a place called adelaide
i was always disappointed with the roast
and for the record, I'm not refering to the typical english Sunday roast, not that, my dear

i'm referring to ...well..plain ol' chinese roast..be it pork, chicken or duck!

and my favourite roast, will be duck! and where do I find my favourite roast duck ?
Well, look no further..its all located in Taman Paramount, SS2 PJ. Most will be able to identify with Sunrise's Roast Duck and BBQ pork...but as the name of the restaurant suggest, they are not open for business, after the sunset....pun intended!

So where do I get my crispy skin, oh-so-succulent and tender roast duck from ? Its just a stone throw away from Sunrise - Loong Foong Restaurant! Honestly, its really evident that they dish out really good roast duck --> look at the line/crowd ! Some of the ladies are all up to get into a catfight just to get their hand on some of these babies....I'm not joking...Ask the boss, she will tell you ALL the catfights that she can remember.


I cannot describe the awesome-ness of the roast duck - I will not do it justice! You just have to fork out some $$ and go there to try it out for yourself! I think its about RM40-45 per duck at the moment...and please, do call them if you'll like to have a table for dinner, especially on the eve of public holidays and on weekends! My family have to pull some strings to get a table on Christmas day (yup..its perfectly normal for my family to have chinese food on Christmas..)

Other goodies @ Loong Foong Restaurant :
River Patin fish - steamed to perfection....

River Prawns with Baked Cheese topping - I believe, its inspired by cheese-baked lobsters ?

Low on $$$ ? Its not surprising!

Eating out is expensive. And that’s where most of my $$$ went to………which resulted in an almost non-existent bank balance (well…aside from food, there’s the occasional splurge on a new top, shoes, bags….etc etc).
Well, its about that time where the bank balance looks like its drying up…..and its a long weekend, where work is park at this place called Far Far Away, I’m craving from some nice stuff to eat. My plan to make my own brekky, which would have saved me about $15 - $20 ++ , but none of the grocery shops were open in the morning and I woke up with a ravenous appetite. Hence, from Foodland, I drove to Jones the Grocers in Hyde Park and had a lovely french toast with crispy bacon strips (I added fried egg too)…and a long black! There goes $25 for brekky! I think its worth every cents though.....

Then feeling absolutely ashamed of myself, on how easily I gave up on my plan to be a frugal chick……I vowed to cook dinner.

And so dinner it is. I have lamb mince, and a 3 days old bunch of mint. I’ve bought that after reading a blog, from Tastespotting.com. I don’t have everything….but I think I can improvise. Making breadcrumbs was easy …..and i have a pack of ground coriander somewhere. Took me awhile to find cinnamon….and I ended up finding a bottle of ground cinnamon and a few stick of cinnamon bark. Hmm…well, I’m good to go to make some Lamb Meatball with Mint

As I planned to skip lunch, I’m expecting that I would have work up a huge appetite by dinner time…hence, risotto it is, which is suggested by Kevin, from Closet Cooking blog. Works really well as the weather is rather chilly, it being the tail end of Autumn. While Kevin uses Farro, I only have arborio rice in my pantry, hence that’ll do. I bought a 1L pack of Chicken Stock from Foodland (which opened at 12 pm today, as its Anzac Day)….and I manage to dig out my stash of dry porcini. Bought this a long long time ago….from the Adelaide Central Market, when i first arrived in Adelaide. Bought it mainly because I’ve never been able to find any Porcini mushroom in M’sia…….and its the most “earthy” flavoured mushroom that I’ve ever had before…..and am glad I finally found an excuse to use it.

 

~~Soaking the dry porcini for about 20 mins~~

So, Dry Porcini Risotto it is……
The dry porcini is the only different element from Kevin’s recipe…..and the twist is that I added the water from the porcini soak to the chicken broth…

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Cooking the risotto……and I don’t have any parmesan cheese, just some bitey cheddar ….and am too lazy to grate it (i don’t think I can actually grate cheddar slices…kekeke…), hence I tear it to bits and sprinkle on the risotto…
Added the porcini to the risotto when its about 20-30 mins after I’ve cooked the rice. The colour of the risotto gets darker and darker….and the porcini, the freshly cracked pepper….the butter, cheese..and stock…just smelled so amazingly good. At that point, even if it taste like crap, I’ll probably want to still put it in my mouth….smells great.
Final product ????? Ta daa……….

I let the whole watery mixture reduced to the above consistency…and plate it with the Lamb meatballs.
Did I mention that it took a lot of will power not to gobble up the meatballs while waiting for the risotto to cook?
And stirring the risotto is quite a chore…and thank god I’m cooking just 1 cup of rice. Can’t imagine having to stir a whole lot of rice in a thickening stock………And Shane, I think you’ll love this…the rice is cooked perfectly…with that little bit of bite to it, what you’ll called al dente if you are cooking pasta. :D
I added a bit of lemon zests before digging in…..which really “brighten” what would have been a heavy meal.
Down the whole thing with a glass of Yalumba’s TGV…….nice!!!! And I have leftover to munch on tomorrow….not that I’m too hopeful as to how a reheated risotto will turn out….fingers crossed!
Happy!!!!!!! guinea pigs who want to try this, please sign up on FB….and book me 1 week in advance to cook this…kekekkekekekekeke….

Visit Kevin’s blog– Closet Cook for the recipe to the lamb meatball, and the basic recipe of a risotto , as I just improvised by adding the porcini (which btw, I did a bit of stirfry with garlic before adding it to the cooking risotto).

Am proud of the risotto, and I also love the meatballs :

A lil bit about wine

WHY CHOOSE WHITE WINE OVER RED ?

On a personal note, I prefer white over red because its really easier to pick a nice white rather than red. I've this fear of picking a red with strong tannin...leaving a dry aftertaste. Feel like the red just wipe out all the saliva out of my mouth...OK I"M BEING GROSS...kekeke

Plus...if the wine is meant to be fruity and aromatic (what the connoisseurs refer to as "bouquet" ), its more apparent in white wine, rather than red. Its hard to detect whatever fruit, cheery wood etc etc they say they had in a red. But if they say the white taste like passionfruit, apple, and berries....chances are, you can taste and smell it!

Well, for those watching their calories intake, this is another reason why WHITE WINE RULES!!

(got this from FEMALE magazine)

Now I know what's a SMOOTH OPERATOR means...

If JJ is reading this, I pray he don't give me the "look". You know what I'm talking about...that look as if I know nothing or as if I came from some far away land where civilisation does not exist!

:P

Its a rare occasion. A friend from Scotland came back and I popped by to visit. And out came a bottle of liquid gold (that's what he calls it, even though, I thought, liquid gold rightfully refers to olive oil).

Its a bottle Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch Whiskey Archive 21 year. Fine...I can't say it with the excitement like he announced it. But, yea....once upon a time, these people used to go out and drink what I call "cockroach water" aka Jack Daniels...where I first get a taste of whiskey. Tasted so vile that I almost spitted it out......

But over the years, James and my ex-boss (non-PwC) had shown me what a shot of Bowmore and Macallan on the rocks taste like. I thought then, yea....there's more to whiskeys.

Well.....until now. The Glenlivet that Scotty (he wants to be anonymous, though I assured him that no one really reads my blog) shared with me....was simply divine. I actually use "delicious and scrumptious" but earned a stare of horror from Scotty! So, divine it'll be!

ITs smooth beyond description or maybe I lack the vocabulary to write about whiskey.....

Anyway, note from Scotty :

You drink the Glenlivet by pouring it into a whiskey glass, just about 1 - 1.5 cm tall. He prefers to have it with chilled whiskey glass (without ice), and a just a dash of icy-c0ld mineral water. Err....if I remember correctly, he swirl it a bit (like wine, but since its a short glass...it don't look that elegant as swirling using a wine glass ....:P). You can actually see the liquid mixing...swirling.....well, if I go into this scientifically...its because of the difference in density and bla bla bla....

He served mine in another whiskey glass.....with ice. Lots of it...because I told him I don't really fancy whiskey. But yea, i think it will be better if its just the Glenlivet+ ice cold water. The ice sorta spoiled the fun....I tasted a bit of his and I can almost call it fragrant...the aroma is different from the dead cockroach smell u get from Jack Daniels (no offence if any of you happened to be a Jack-D fans....just my personal opinion). And I truly understand why Scotty called it liquid gold....it really taste and feels like warm liquid enveloping your throat....and the colour of the Glenlivet? Amber ....almost gold!

Nope, I don't think SCotty will be an alcoholic, but probably a collector........Mr.Scotland actually spent quite a fortune in securing this bottle.........and I'm feel really honoured that he shared this with me *beaming*

(Truth is, he's just too excited to show off his bottle, but his gang are not back in KL to meet up with him....leaving him no choice, but to share his "precious" drink with me.....*bleh*, some friends......)

Btw...no pics though. I'm rushing off to meet friends for dessert.......and forgot to snap photos!
Scotty, you want to contribute pictures?