Shin Minori Japanese Restaurant @ UE Square

Met up with my pals for ala-carte Japanese buffet dinner @ Shin Minori.  Few weeks back, I went to Senki  Japanese Restaurant @ Killiney Road for their buffet and I personally find that Shin Minori served better quality of Japanese food at an affordable price.The service crew were friendly and responsive. As always, I was very hungry because I skipped my breakfast and only had light snacks so that I could eat more at dinner.  Luckily, the crew served our food fast without waiting too long. In about 10-15 minutes, our table easily filled up with all the dishes that we ordered.

 



 Complimentary dish ~ Lightly grilled fish head with sweet sauce. It's flavorful.

 

We order California, Spider and Ebi Tempura Temaki ~ the way they wrapped the temaki was firm and filling was generous. Oishii desu ne



 Here were our skewers of grilled shitake mushrooms with katsuobushi (bonito flakes), a plate of yasai itame (fried mixed veg), saba teriyaki (grilled mackarel with teriyaki sauce), Breaded prawns, fried chicken wings and i think I ordered the spider maki set as the grilled eel sushi set were out from the menu that day :(



Sashimi Moriwase ~ very fresh raw snapper, yellowtail, salmon, tuna and octopus.  This was actually our 2nd order :)





O0ops! Almost finishing the whole bowl of garlic rice and then remembered to snap a shot. The rice was very fragrant.





This was my 2nd order of the grilled mackarel (saba). Earlier on, I had the saba with teriyaki sauce and now this was saba shioyaki (grilled with salt).  The slice of saba was nicely grilled and the fishmeat was not dry and tough.



The shishamo (pregnant capelin) was a little disappointing as it was too charred and there wasn't much of roe. 



Gyuniku Shogayaki ~ Beef with special sauce.



Pizza

Thumbs up for this kani tempura ~ crispy and definitely goes well with beer ^.~

Salmon with special sauce.



There was no dessert in the buffet menu so we ordered separately. Yuzu sorbet, Matcha ice cream with azuki beans & Wildberries gelato.



Christmas deco is up at everywhere....Ho Ho Ho!

There were supposed to have more mouth-watering food photos posted here but I was busy placing orders, eating and chatting with my pals ~ hehe!

Have a good week ahead ~ Cheerios

Weekday Afternoon Tea @ The Regent Hotel

I managed to take a day off to enjoy an afternoon tea @ The Regent, Tea Lounge with Ms K and also to give her a birthday treat. I wished it would be a bright and sunny day. Unfortunately, the sky was rather dark and cloudy; and a heavy downpour would be coming up. Indeed! Just as we steppped into the hotel lobby, it started to rain outside. Phew!

The afternoon tea started at 12noon till 5pm. There were only 1 table occupied. It might be due to the wet weather which not many people come for tea that day. Well, the lounge was cozy and quiet. The friendly staff brought us to our sofa seats at a corner where we could chat (gossip) privately ^.~

We had ordered 2 tea sets. As for the beverage (tea/coffee/chocolate) menu, we could choose only 2 types of beverage and it's free flow. While waiting for our 3-tier tea sets to be served, I took a few shots of the lounge and our table setting.

That was what where the staff brought the tea sets out.

English style of table setting.

We were first served with the finger sandwiches with egg mayo, smoked salmon & chicken fillings. We opted out the roasted beef. Here's a full pic of our afternoon tea sets.

Closer of the 3-tier tea set ~ Ms K couldn't wait to grab those yummlicious goodies :) I let her wait until I had taken a satisfied photo of the tea set..wahaha ^0^

Closer pic of the goodies in the tea set.

We began with the 1st tier which served scones ~ plain and raisins. I love scones but it can be very filling.

Their clotted cream was simply the best and we had actually asked for 2nd serving. We spread alot on each scone ~ OMG it's fattening ya (o^^o) The lemon curd was yummy too ~ smooth & sourish. I didn't have much of the strawberry preserve as I preferred the first 2 spreads.

The next tier was savory pastries. Thumbs up for the cheesestraws, sausage & cornish pastie but the quiche was not my liking.

Here came the last tier ~ desserts and I couldn't wait to taste all. (o^^o)
I always love macarons and their lovely colors. Our macarons were in one of my fav color ~ Pink. The rest of the delicious desserts include cheesecake, choc cake, choc mousse, raspberry cocconut delice; curd tart and a piece of choc praline.

In all, I'm satisfied with my English afternoon tea set. Moreover, it's a nice place to chill out with sweet treats and music (there was actually a pianist performing in late noon ~ jazz pop instrumental music pieces).

Christmas Lightings

Yesterday was the Christmas light-up in Orchard Road. The lightings were bright and colorful and most of the shopping malls are beautifully decorated. I begin to feel the Christmas spirit around and busy sourcing for Christmas gifts.

The Christmas tree at Takashima Shopping Centre is decorated with Crystal ~ simple yet elegant.

Same old Christmas tree but with different ornaments and lights every year at Ngee Ann City. This year, the lights on the tree are brilliant cool white light which is nice.

We were hanging outside at ION Orchard and waiting patiently for the light-up.

Wow! The Christmas tree is so lovely ^.~

Beautiful ~ the yellow lights look like jewels ~ Blink Blink *v*

Everyone started to snap several photos outside the mall and street.


The blue and white color lightings just magically transform the usual Orchard Road into a sparkling and dazzling street.

Christmas is my favorite festive season and time of the year (o^^o)

Weekend Baking ^.~

Recently, I got the avocado cheesecake recipe from http://www.avocado.org.au/ and decided to bake one. Again, thanks to Li who always willingly to offer her kitchen for baking ^.~

Here are the main ingredients ~ avocado (get those ripe ones), digestive biscuits for the cake base and 2 blocks of cream cheese.

Instead of crushing up the biscuits with our bare hands, we use the food processor which is faster and less messy.

Mix the melted butter into the crushed digestive biscuits. Then firmly tapped and pressed the mixture in the tray. Li has a baking tool which I think it is for smoothing cream on a cake. She bought it for pressing the crust and it really worked as it was much easier than using the back of a spoon. Smashing up the riped avocado ~ so creamy & yummy! The centre photo is the lemon juice.

2 blocks of cream cheese ~ beat with sugar till it's thick, smooth & creamy!
Thereafter, follow to mix in the eggs, cornflour, lemon juice and avocado mixutre.

Pour the avocado cream cheese mixture into the trays and then into the hot oven.

This was my first time baking a cheesecake. Li thought me the waterbath baking method. I went online to read about this baking method. Just realised that this technique helped the cake to bake gently, without cracking. The french term is known as Bain-Marie.

Still a little crack as perhaps the oven is little too hot but the color and texture were good.

PHEW!~ successful baking of our avocado cheesecake ^.^

The avocado taste was strong as we used 3 avocados.

I brought to office for my colleagues and friends to try it ~ they commented good ~ happy!

As there were time for other baking so we went on to bake lemon ginger drop cookies and muffins.

Baking is indeed fun and fulfilling ~ my weekend was well-spent Wo0OHoo0OO!