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!

Chocolates Making

One afternoon during lunch hour, I visited Bake King Retail Store @Haig Road. The store is selling all baking products such as baking molds, wares, ingredients, cake decorations and many more. As I had only a short time to spend in the store, I just browsed for the stuff which I was looking to buy. In the end, I grabbed 2 sets of muffin cups, a block of chocolate, heart shaped chocolate mold and Christmas cookie cutters. The muffin cups and cookie cutters are meant for my next baking session with my friend ^.~ As for the chocolate molds, I was going to try out on making chocolates with apricot fillings for the very first time. It seems easy thou' :)

I bought a small block of chocolate which was just enough for making 15 pieces of heart shape chocolates.

The chocolate should melt in a slow heat in a double boiler which consist of a bowl fits in a saucepan. Keep stirring to avoid the melted chocolate become lumpy.

Here is my silicone chocolate mold. When the chocolates are hardened, the mold is soft and rubberize so it is easy to pop out the chocolates.

I had some apricots left so I decided to put into my chocolates.

It was easy to make chocolates. However, it was my first time so you could tell from the photo that it was lousily made (i__i) I realised my mistake that I should not put in the apricot bits first. I should have put in the melted chocolates and freeze till a little harden and then put in the apricot bits. Thereafter, follow again with the melted chocolates to cover it.

Oh there was still some melted chocolate left so my mum decided to put them into a agar agar mold ^0^ but it could only fill 2 molds.

It was indeed fun and easy to make chocolates. You should try it too (^_^)

Imperial Treasure Steamboat Restaurant@ TripleOne Somerset

Steamboat has always been my favourite. There are so many dishes that you can choose to cook in your hot pot plus those yummy dipping sauces which make your food more flavorful. So far, my friends and I usually patronise Ting Heng Seafood Restaurant @Tiong Poh Road and The Magic of ChongQing Hotpot @Tanglin Shopping Centre. These 2 restaurants serve very good broths, dipping sauces, wide varieties of fresh food for your hotpot as well as a-la-carte side dishes.

Recently, I went to Imperial Treasure Steamboat Restaurant @TripleOne Somerset which I heard from ex-colleague commented it was good but rather expensive. Anyway, I asked L to join me since she also likes steamboat. Of course, I warned her about this pricey meal before we went to Imperial Treasure Steamboat ^.~

There are 12 dipping sauces for you to mix. I always like white sesame/peanut sauce mixed with the dried chilli paste.

L likes the hot and spicy broth ~ Ma La. For me, I like to try a different broth instead of the usual herbal chicken broth ~ Century Egg with Corriander (non-spicy). I had tried this broth in my previous trip to Hong Kong. Initially I doubted that I would like it because I just didn't like corriander but once I tried the soup, the corrianders gave a pleasant aroma taste to the soup which I could accept it. It was light and delicious.

While waiting for the soups to boil, the waiter served us 4 long sticks of thin spring rolls in a wine glass. The rolls were crispy and the fillings were delicious. We did not want to have rice so we chose the egg noodles.

Next dish served to us was the live prawns ~ OMG, they were flipping and bubbles coming out from them. Totally freshness as the prawns looked shiny. The cooked prawns were crunchy and so yummy!

Here were the thinly slice beef and pork ~ very good for shabu shabu.

Our plates full of squids, eels, wantons, dumplings, fish and meat balls; and yams. There were cabbage and lettuce too which we had already put in the hot pot.