Playing with Food - Meiji Chocolate House

When Y and her husband R were in Hong Kong recently, we partook in a couple of delicious meals together, and they also kindly and generously brought me this fun gift - a to-be-assembled "house" made up of chocolate pieces. Y says that her (super cute, super well behaved 5 year old) daughter QB really enjoyed putting this together, and thought I might like to try it, and thereafter enjoy the chocolate, of course.

I decided to tote it along one afternoon when J and I visited his family, so that we could do it together with his two nephews (3 and 7).

As it turns out, I took more pictures than actually partake in all that much of the assembly as J did most of it together with the older nephew.

The end result was quite funny, nothing like the coordinated, put together piece pictured on the front of the box, but cute in a messy way nonetheless. Everyone had loads of fun heating up the chocolate "glue" that holds the pieces together, gingerly putting the pieces of chocolate together, and finally, gently plonking on the colourful chocolate pebbles and strawberry flavoured cones on the roof. And of course, at the end, it got torn apart as the boys greedily descended upon the chocolate to gobble everything up.

Thanks again, Y and R!

The burger from Wagyu

I'd been looking forward to the burger from Wagyu for literally, months, since the first time I had it for dinner. Finally grabbed L and A last Friday for a late leisurely lunch, eagerly anticipating the burgers we were all going to order.

Wagyu is a restaurant from the Castelo Concepts restaurant group, which also owns the quite delightful Oola up on Bridges Street, one of my favourite venues for lunch and dinner.

We made our reservation at 1pm and the place was packed and noisily festive when we arrived - everyone is taking the opportunity to have a nice long lunch at the start of the weekend, very nice. The restaurant is an all day dining concept, open from breakfast and all the way through, which means you can satisfy your burger or wagyu steak craving at three in the afternoon, should the urge beckon. They also offer a 3-course set lunch at a very good value HK$145, which we were briefly tempted by, but we came to Wagyu for the burger, and so all three of us ordered the burger.

I ordered mine sans vegetables, the way I usually like my burgers - just the wagyu beef and with cheese (3 choices of swiss, cheddar or blue). And requested for french fries (skinny) instead of the fat fries which was the standard side. L and A's fat fries looked nice and succulent, and they said they were very delicious. The bread was lightly toasted, fluffy warm white bap, which complemented the meat very nicely.

The burger was as good as I remember, with the juicy patty from wagyu minced beef, and even though I ordered mine well done for obvious reasons, it wasn't dry at all, and was juicy and flavourful, with a nice hint of cumin and spice. The fries were nicely done and I gobbled up every single fry, alternating between ketchup and horseradish dip, as well the whole entire burger, though I had well meaning intentions to perhaps leave about.... a quarter behind. Yumyum!!

Actually, on a side note, L felt that the blue cheese which was her choice of cheese was a tad overpowering, but my cheddar went nicely with.

A quick mention about the dessert I forced my friends to "share" with me (actually I ate about 95% of it) - the apple crumble consisted of more crumble than apple, the way I like it, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a light sprinkle of strawberry and apricot sauce, topped with a decorative gooseberry. The sauce baked into the crumble tasted very slightly reminiscent of the Teochew taro dessert orh nee and was not typical of what you'd expect in an apple crumble, but I felt its warm sweet gooeyness was well incorporated into the entire concoction.

A return visit please!

Making chocolate pudding

Had 2 boxes of Valrhona dark chocolates squares in the fridge and discovered they were reaching the expiration in a few weeks - so decided to do something with them that would constructively use them up.

Used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen - followed the recipe closely except for pure vanilla extract - couldn't locate anything apart from artificial vanilla flavouring and I looked in four supermarkets.

Still very Valrhona chocolatey, and was a cinch to make.

A Complicated Noodle at Greyhound Cafe

Greyhound Cafe in Siam Paragon is a must-go for a quick snack whenever I'm in Bangkok.  It's been awhile - more than 2 years since I've been to BKK, so when Greyhound Cafe opened up in Hong Kong, a visit is definitely imminent even though I was skeptical of whether the cafe's hip vibe of thai-western fusion would be able to be reasonably replicated outside of Bangkok.

Today, after running some errands in the area, I ended up in IFC just before the lunch rush and managed to grab a table.

The eatery was flooded with blazing light because it was along the side facing the harbour, and the chairs were a mix of retro fabric ones and clean hard structured ones. The general decor scheme was black and white, and naked bulbs hung from the exposed ceiling, with specials of the day were written in chalk on blackboards. Casual, hip, apt. Ok, I found it a tad toooo bright but I tend to find places too bright.

At Greyhound, I always order the Complicated Noodle (literally, that's what they call it on the menu), and so I did that. It's actually a typical thai minced pork stew, served with the lime and fish sauce chili on the side (this chili is the kind you'd find everywhere on the streets of Bangkok), and fresh lettuce. Greyhound serves it with a twist with square pieces of flat white noodles  - the same noodles you'd commonly find in a vietnamese pho or chinese noodle dish, except for the funky square shape.

Top: Complicated Noodle as served. Bottom: my attempt at piling everything unto the noodle

I guess it's named Complicated because eating it is not straightforward - I tried tearing up the lettuce and cilantro into little pieces, and sprinkled some chili and the pork unto the flat noodle piece, and folding the creation in half. Miserably failed to elegantly shove it into my waiting mouth with my hands though. It didn't work much better when I used a fork and knife but at least I didn't have pork stew juice running down my wrist.

That aside, it was as delicious as I remember, and I think they even dumbed down the amount of garlic in the chili. Even though you can see the pieces floating on top in the picture, I wasn't left with the stubborn lingering aftertaste of garlic, which pleased me tremendously. The chili was tangy and cut through the warm pork stew, and with lots of cilantro and bites of lettuce, provided a nice crunch to the entire morsel.

The rest of the menu looked interesting too, with pasta items that incorporated asian/thai ingredients like salty fish, Thai anchovies, fresh chilis and basil.

Must return to eat more!

2 locations - IFC Mall in Central and Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui.
greyhoundcafe.com.hk

Please, the Cheese

I miss cheese.

Specifically, the smelly, gooey, soft ones. Like camembert, brie, and the rounds of goat's cheese that's practically liquid inside. The last time I was in front of a really delectable cheese platter was probably the last time I was in Paris in January - it was at the hotel we were all staying at for the fair, and there was a glorious cheese platter, mainly the soft smelly ones, at dinner each night. Resisted most of it at first because I was newly preggers then, and as the days went by I succumbed and had a little bit, just a little bit. Can't wait to be able to have smelly and soft cheese again.

Couldn't locate a picture of the cheese, so instead, in an unrelated fashion (sorry) here is a picture of the beautiful dessert platter that I found - they bring this out for your selection (so many desserts, so little time) at the Les Deux Magots on Saint Germain, which I always run to for the heavenly millefeuille (actually the pastries are from Pierre Hermes, but Pierre Hermes stores in Paris seem to offer only takeaway items, no sit down spaces, so I usually have it at this cafe) and a leisurely cup of tea.



This was the mac and cheese I made during the Basic Culinary class at the CIA last month - it was the first dish during that class, and when the instructor was calling out teams and the dishes the corresponded to each team, I immediately put my hand up to do this.

The picture doesn't quite do it justice (that's me holding it, by the way) but the combination of cheesiness and pieces of fatty bacon really made the difference. I find that mac and cheese without meat pieces tend to be a tad too rich. This mac and cheese was made with from-scratch bechamel sauce, that probably added to its deliciousness.

It's also best finished in the oven with a generous sprinkling of cheese and breadcrumbs on top, because then it begets a lovely crispy crusty topping.

I love cheese and a cheese+beef combinationso much that usually when I have a cheesy item like a burger, I sometimes ask for extra cheese but always always ask for just the meat and the cheese, sans other sauces, veggies and the other accoutrements that eateries seem to like to pile on.

What cheesy item to have for dinner tonight?

Missing Paddy

Here he is after we visited the vet to kill his tick infection. We took him to the park and had juice and iced coffee and he had some water.

The tick infection made the darling lose weight.

J would squish clusters of ticks - 4-6 each time - I'd sweep my fingers through his fur and point out the ticks, and then J would remove and squish them, yielding quite a lot of blood each time.

The vet prescribed antibiotics.

Wild Boar Sighting

The other night, in Singapore, we took the Old Upper Thomson route home, hoping to glimpse some wild monkeys (the ones the huge signs warn you not to feed), as there usually are quite a few along that route.

Suddenly, we saw a whole herd of these things Charge across the little road from the side with the houses, straight into the jungle!!! It was like - !!! what ARE those? we kept driving.

And then, just after the Prata coffeeshop row and before Upper Peirce Reservoir, we came across another herd - all 9 of them, just ruminating on the side of the (back) road. It must have been a different herd because it was quite a distance between the two sightings.

I was too scared (in case they erm, charge towards the open window??!) to roll down the window too much to snap images of them, but managed to get some quick ones even though it was really dark. There were adults and babies, all sniffing and scratching away.

Did a quick google search and apparently these sightings are irregular but have happened before.

For the rest of the trip, we kept driving by hoping to see them again - we didn't. Guess we got lucky that one night.

Do Not Disturb

Quick trip to Shanghai a few days ago, and this was the Do Not Disturb sign for the hotel room. I liked it that it was quite a lot more imaginative than the usual say-nothing ones. Especially the one about contemplating and enjoying a pastry ;)

It's now perched on the doorknob of our study.

Oh Singapore! A Parade of the Bestest foods on the island

I guess I didn't know what I was really missing until it was no longer in my backyard (or a 15-30 minute drive away).

Born and bred in dear Singapore, I'd taken the smorgasbord of fantastic local delights for granted, until it was no longer Just There.

I'd been actively, greedily, obsessively craving all the delicious, yummilicious, non-replicable foods of my home for weeks, and since J and I confirmed our trip back, been researching madly on the internet - primarily on ieatishootipost.sg and corroborating/getting more details from other online resources that showed up.

The following is a selection of the best of the best to be found in Singapore that we chomped, slurped and devoured during this whirlwind trip in early April.

Fried Things!

From top left, clockwise:

- Oyster Omelette (Orluak) from Ah Chuan Oyster Omelette at Toa Payoh Lor 7 Food Centre. We also had Orluak from Ah Hock Oyster Omelette at Whampoa Hawker Centre. Those who like their Orluak crispy would enjoy both tremendously - we did, but I wished there was just a little more more gooey mianfen (flour) bits. 

- Fried Carrot Cake (ChaiTaoKuay) from Sembawang Hill Food Centre - not sure how ieat may rate this, but I loved its fluffiness, and how the bits of radish cake was not broken up into teeny pieces but were large enough to chew and swallow

- Hokkien Mee - we tried both stalls at Whampoa Drive Food Centre - the famous Singapore Fried Hokkien Mee (pictured) as well as Qin Li's, which some netizens say is much better than the famous one. We preferred the famous one - it was a lot more flavourful with rich prawn and lard undertones, and the pieces of lard (you have to ask for it) scattered on top made it so much more shiok.

- Fried Kuay Teow from Hai Kee Char Kway Teow at Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre - I remember queuing up patiently when this uncle would fry each plate individually (even if you order 5 plates, he would still do each one separately) at the Margaret Drive hawker centre. This hawker centre was quieter, and more than half of the stalls were closed when we went around 8pm - they probably open in the day. As moist, rich, sinful, and chockful of "harm" (blood cockles) as I remember. Sooooooo good. We also queued up (ok I queued up while J patiently sat and waited) for 45 minutes for Guan Kee Char Kway Teow at Ghim Moh Food Centre - pretty good but I preferred Hai Kee's for its generous cockles and more robust depth.

Sweet Things!
There was also a slew of sweet local desserts I (I say "I" because J somehow didn't enjoy the sweet local things that much - silly silly) gobbled up.

Top row, L to R:
- Durian mousse cake from Goodwood Park Hotel - it happened to be the durian festival and of course I had to takeaway several items - had this, as well as the durian puff and the durian crumble. This was The Best. So duriany and melts in your mouth. I want more!!!! The durian crumble didn't taste very much of durian at all. Note that I ate it All By Myself as J abhors durian. More for me!
- Ang Ku Kueh (sticky sweet cakes with various fillings) from Poh Cheu at Bukit Merah Lane 1. There is always a (not too long) queue at this place, and while I'm not a super giant AKK fan generally, we were going for the Depot Road Laksa next door at Alexandra Village food centre (which turned out to be Closed on a sunday - hmph!) so I procured some. My favourite is the green bean filling
- Chendol from Toa Payoh Lorong 7 Food Centre - oh so good. No queue because we went at an odd time mid afternoon, I wanted like, several bowls but stopped myself. Icy, sweet, coconut milky, it hit all the right spots.

Bottom row, L to R:
- Ah Balling Peanut Soup (glutinous rice balls with various fillings in a soup with softened white peanuts) from Ghim Moh food centre. The original one, which my late grandmother loved, and my parents still love, is at Golden Mile food centre at Beach Road - I was glad to chance across this branch at Ghim Moh while hunting down the super long queue charkwayteow. I think traditionally the fillings are peanut, but I much prefer the yam and red bean ones. The other fillings are black sesame (J loved this) and green tea (not bad la)
- Peanut Pancake from Tanglin Halt market - oh boy, ieatishootipost and many others Raved about this - this stall opens at 5am and closes at 11am, and the various comments scared me into going one morning when they just opened. We were rewarded with warm and pillowy peanut pancake, and even eaten cold, they were good.


Other noteworthy eats!
(clockwise from Top Left - main picture)
- Braised Duck from Upper Thomson, along the same row but different block from the famous Ampang Yong Tau Foo: my parents are mad about this, we all enjoyed this together. The powerful chili that comes with it provided the perfect zing to the soft, braised meat, boiled eggs and tofu.
- Chwee Kueh (white flour cakes topped with savoury radish bits) from Ghim Moh food centre. I always forget how delicious chwee kueh is - it's so savoury and salty and soft and I can probably have like, 20 at one go!!
- Meepok with Fishballs at Adam Road food centre - ok this one was not bad but not Spectacular. I include it because it was on my to-eat list.
- Beef hor fun from Hans at Upper Thomson Road: I eat this with chopped chili padi instead of the sour green chili. Didn't get a chance to try the famous ones downtown that ieat recommended, but this one, for a chain/fastfood place, hit the right notes. I like the beef version much better than the seafood (more commonly available?) ones at most cze char places. I try have it each time I come home, and it's always been good except One time some months back when for some reason, the cook forgot to salt it completely... so with lots of soy sauce with the chili padi, it was good again, but otherwise, almost completely bland.

Am writing this just more than a week after returning to Hong Kong, and it makes me wanna race back to Singapore again and revisit (over and over) all this deliciousness!!!!!

Apart from the above, we had other meals at the always reliable Peramakan, Kashmir and PS at Dempsey, oh oh and the chicken wings at Ice Cold Beer!! (always lovely to see dear dear friends - let's eat together again soon!!)

Lastly - almost forgot to mention that we also had the Depot Road Claypot laksa (for some reason I didn't take a picture.....greedy I guess) - even though the general consensus seems to be that the standard has dropped since the original older couple had sold the recipe to the current owners, I still enjoyed its biting spiciness and the thick gravy.

A Cure for Insomnia

These days, my sleeping patterns have been all helter-skelter - when I had a full time job, sleep was always a rare and cherished commodity and I would sleep through the night, no matter what city or timezone I was in.

During my recent trip to the US, I was generally exhausted after cooking and baking all day that I'd sleep by 10pm each night and have no problems rousing around 5-6am.

Since I've been back in Hong Kong less than two weeks ago, my sleep patterns have been here and there. A lot more There than Here. More often than not, I wake up at 2, 3, 4am and have trouble going back to sleep, and if I do, it may last just over an hour before I awake again. Doesn't help that I occasionally allow myself an afternoon nap.

I read on baby websites that apparently insomnia is a regular occurrence for expectant women, in preparation for their upcoming sleepless nights when baby arrives!!!

It's currently close to 6am and I have been up since 4-ish. Munching on a bowl of grapes now typing this. I need to be up early today as will be trooping down to the airport express downtown to check in my luggage - leaving for Singapore for a few days tonight!!! Charkuayteow, Oyster Omelette, Hokkien Mee, everything delicious and local, here I come!!

For now, a mug of warm milk, perhaps?

My Guilty McPleasure

These days, I consume a lot more McDonald's than I should.

More specifically, the breakfast item Sausage McMuffin with egg. Now, where I live, they deliver round the clock. Which means if you get an urge at 5am in the morning, you give them a call, and it arrives in less than 30 minutes (unless it's at peak hour, then they'll take an hour).

The problem - if you call it that - with the sausage mcmuffin with egg (with a slice of cheese, standard) is its saltiness. Its delicious, tongue teasing saltiness and the melted processed cheese that pulls the entire concoction into a gooey yummy mess. Yumminess personified.

There is nothing like rolling out of bed and having it for breakfast. Often, I have it alone as J would have gone off to work. Sometimes, I live it up by ordering in for both of us - complete with hotcakes in order to meet the minimum delivery order. And I order him a "fresh brewed coffee" and try to balance out the evilness by having low fat milk or just sparkling water with lime for my beverage.

Guess how many grams of fat there are in the sausage mcmuffin with egg?

27 grams. Yes. Twenty-Seven Grams. It's that darn piece of sausage. The Egg McMuffin (with ham and cheese, no sausage) is 12 grams. Less than Half. You can't find these numbers on the hong kong website, but if you go to the US/Global one, it's all there for you to see. I accidentally discovered the numbers while in the US and have vowed to try to have the Egg McMuffin instead.

So that's what I did this early morning. It arrived almost piping hot, in 25 minutes flat. It was pretty good. But I tell you. There is nothing like the sausage patty in the Sausage McMuffin that consequently doubles the amount of fat and waaaaay more than doubles the amount of tastiness. Maybe I'll wait for J to have it with me next time and we can split the sausage one. What are (relatively skinny) husbands for?

photo courtesy of mcdonalds.com.hk

Using garlic again - glorious anchovy spaghetti

Tonight, I made anchovy spaghetti - salty, savoury, incredibly pungent and fishy (but in a totally delicious way).

The long and short of it is, you take pasta (the long ones go best, not the short type) and you have anchovies and make it chock full of minced garlic. I had it for the first time at Big D's Grill when he was in the Bedok coffee shop in Singapore and loved it to bits, and then suffered terribly for the enduring garlic after taste. Nonetheless, recently I begain craving for it, and decided to try making it tonight.

Found a super simple recipe from allrecipes.com, and modified it from what I remember from the Big D version and the feedback from the readers on the site.

One seemingly obvious lesson I took away from the classes at CIA is that you have to taste, taste, taste your food during the cooking process - I used to have the rather odd habit of barely tasting my food as I cooked and hoped for the best at the end. Crazy, I know. These days, I follow the recipe proportions to some extend but rely on my tastebuds and personal preferences to add and subtract appropriately.

First, I added a generous handful of chopped and crushed chili padi, and instead of minced garlic, I used 4-5 largeish cloves which I smashed with a knife (if they were oversmashed I'd discard them and start with a fresh clove - don't want to risk toooo much bits of garlic scattered everywhere). Instead of water, I used chicken stock. Also added some tinned diced tomatos (sans water) that I had leftover from the chicken jambalaya the other night.

When the garlic and chili padi came together with a dash of olive oil in a delicious and nose tickling aroma, it made me cough uncontrollably, but that soon passed. Then, threw in anchovies including some of the oil it came in, and chopped parsley. I wasn't sure how salty the anchovies will end up (during the cooking process, the anchovies get broken up into quite tiny minced pieces), so I added them gradually as I went along. Finally, the tomatoes, and the chicken stock, and simmered for around ten minutes. When it tasted a tad too salty and didn't have enough of the chili kick, I added more chili and a little water, as well as a lot more fresh parsley than the original recipe called for.

Then, after a bit more simmering, I ensured I removed the garlic pieces (which had softened considerably) as I felt it had given up enough of the garlic flavour and then added the cooked spaghetti and tossed it over medium heat to ensure it's evenly distributed before serving immediately.

I loved it!!!!! and would cook it again in a heartbeat!! Enjoyed it lot more than the Big D version because it only had a touch of garlic and I guess, because I couldn't believe I made something so delicious with my own hands - possibly a biased opinion of course.  J said it was delicious but grumbled that there wasn't any meat - apparently anchovies is not counted as... perhaps the next time round I will toss in some boiled shrimp or serve it together with a separately done piece of chicken or steak.

And I still have some of the anchovy left - considering cooking this again in the next couple of days while J is travelling, and I may try it without garlic this time just to experiment with the outcome.

Basic Culinary at CIA and Chicken Jambalaya in Hong Kong

Yesterday I got back into Hong Kong after two weeks in Hyde Park. Slept through most of the day (and tossed through the night).

Week two was Basic Culinary. There were fourteen students in my class, including three parent-offspring pairs - father-daughter x 2 and mother-daughter. What a really nice thing to do together! Hopefully one day one of my children (!) would think it's cool to do this with me.

As expected, it was more grueling than Baking the week before - day One started off easy enough, with us spending most of the kitchen time learning to chop vegetables and fruit the right way. Of course, I'd been holding my knife and cutting wrongly the entire time - you're supposed to curl the fingers of the non-knife holding hand so that you don't chop off anything human on yourself, and grasp the handle of the knife firmly with the other hand, without the forefinger sticking out.

We learned to slice, chop and dice vegetable and fruit into different sizes, the professional way - as well as mince, batonnet and julienne. My favourite was the Supreme technique- where you peel the citrus fruit into one continuous long peel and then cut out pretty slices for presentation on a dinner plate. Chef also demonstrated how to make fresh pasta from scratch - simply 1 part flour to 1 part eggs, but it was the technique of flattening the pasta and cutting that was the challenge.

The rest of the days passed by in a blur of various cooking techniques - dry heat cooking with fat and oils (eg deep frying and sautéing.stir frying), the making of sauces, dry-heat cooking with little fat (eg roasting and grilling), moist heat and combination cooking (poaching, steaming, stewing and braising). We had for lunch each except for the first day when the student assistants (ie future chefs) cooked for us, we ate what we cooked that morning - each team basically cooks different items and everything is shared buffet style.

Chef Skibitcky was American and was a gregarious man in his late 50s/early 60s who had been teaching in the culinary for about 10 years, and headed the UN headquarters kitchen and various restaurants before ending up at the culinary.

Chef demoing pasta making

My most memorable item that I made was macaroni and cheese - there are tons of ways to make macaroni and cheese - I even vaguely recall a way that utilised Campbell's Cream of Chicken when we were teenagers (correct, Esther and girls??). The one we were taught in class was a bit more... professional/gourmet (!?). Bechamel sauce was made from scratch from flour, clarifier butter and milk, and that was the main binding cream. Cheddar was used, and generous chunks of bacon. The salty meat made the entire dish less rich and more palatable and that was a good thing because it meant you can eat a lot more!

the vegetable component - wheatberries, spinach, red lettuce .

 On the last day, in our teams, we were given a basket of items and we came up with our own menus and cooked them based on that, ensuring each item is used. Each team had a different basket and the results were quite beautiful as well as tasty!

my team's creation - miso glazed cod on a bed of clam croquette, with snowpeas, pepper and winter squash

We also had two beautiful organised meals at the American Bounty and the Escoffier - fine dining restaurants at the CIA. More on those later.

Oh, and finally, a quick mention about the Chicken Jambalaya I made for dinner tonight back in Hong Kong - the student assistants made this for us for lunch on day one and it was so delicious I had to try to do it at home, with much success, I'm happy to say!

It was surprisingly easy - recipe loosely adapted from here, though I left out the onions and garlic, and used regular vegetable oil to brown my chicken instead of olive oil.  I used two drumsticks and two chicken legs and the result was the moist, slightly paella-y and risotto-esque texture that I remember with the chicken tender and nicely browned and deliciously savoury with tomatoes and the various herbs.

Baking Boot Camp at the Culinary Institute of America

I'm sitting here in my hotel room, just before 7 in the morning, on the saturday after a week at the CIA - Culinary Institute of America - attending the Baking Boot Camp class. It's nippy out there, about 3 degrees celsius and I grabbed a cup of hot tea from the breakfast table downstairs and am sitting here munching on the chocolate chip and cinnamon scone we made in class last week.

The CIA at Hyde Park - a 1.5 hours drive from New York City, was founded in 1946 and is the premier culinary school in the United States - in fact, it's the only school in the US that is fully dedicated to the pursuit of culinary arts. There are two other campuses in the US, and the Hyde Park is the original one. I'd been looking forward to these two classes for months!

I'd signed up for two classes back to back - the Baking Boot Camp and the Cooking Boot Camp - both basic starter classes designed to provide both a culinary vacation in the fully immersed environment of a full fledged culinary school as well as go back to the basics of Baking and Cooking.

And I haven't baked in years and can count on one hand the number of times I've done a cookie or a brownie from a box in my decades on this earth!

Our class had thirteen students, consisting primarily of people who have been baking and cooking for many years at home, even including a couple of them who own a bakery and online cookie store back home. I guess I was the only true novice, but the Chef instructor - Chef Juergen Temme from Germany - made everything seem not toooo difficult to accomplish even though I felt I obviously lacked the flourish and ease that the other students seem to have. Though I still managed to churn out quite tasty products indeed!

For 4 days, I kneaded dough, used a mixer for the first time in my life, and made savoury biscuits, cookies, scones, pound cake, and braided bread dough to make a giant challah, shaped dough to make baguettes, and oh yes! pies! My team did an apple and chocolate cream pie. And we made our own lunch of pizzas on the last day.

The most interesting part for me apart from the actual class and lectures, was being amongst the students doing their associate (2 year) and bachelor (4 year) programs. A large proportion of them came fresh from High School with the requisite minimum 6 months of real experience in a kitchen (excluding fast food kitchens like Mcdonalds and Starbucks) for either cooking or baking, and some of them already have an initial (non culinary) bachelor's degree. The average age of the students is 23, and classes looked intense! I also saw the occasional student who looked more mature - in their 50s and beyond. Career changers, I imagine.

Basically, everything you eat  and that takes place at the CIA is made by and made to happen by the students - from the mass production kitchen (the cafeteria where we breakfasted and lunched everyday)  to the French and American restaurants Escoffier and American Bounty and the casual cafe Apple Pie Bakery. The service staff is made up of students too, obviously - even as you're studying to be a chef (Back of House), they want you to understand the Front of House, in particular if you plan to open a restaurant or head up a kitchen in the future.

Oh boy, I sure envied those students - rushing from class to class, 12-15 hour days hands on in the kitchens, being yelled at by their chefs. I'm not sure if I would ever go to full time culinary school since the original idea isn't to open a restaurant or be a purveyor of fine cakes online, but I suppose it was a combination of non stop learning in this beautiful, immersive environment, and the idea that you have your whole life ahead of you, that made me feel a bit wistful.

More deep dive details about the week to come!

Pad Krapow Moo: minced pork with basil rice (and garlic!!)

I love this spicy, basil-y porky dish to bits and this is a must-have each time I go to Bangkok - has it been nearly two years?! And it’s good no matter where you have it in Bangkok - dingy food courts, roadside stalls, restaurants. Is it because it’s so easy to cook?

We shall find out tonight as me, the novice, attempts to cook it. And in fact, to honour this dish's authenticity, I am using garlic for the very first time in my little kitchen - not chopped up as the real version would be, but in whole cloves (not even smashed) to get a Touch of garlic flavour but not toooo much.

It was a challenge locating Holy Basil in Hong Kong, I’m sure it’s available because there are many Thai restaurants here, but the one thai grocery store I knew in Central had a basil that was either Thai Basil or Holy Basil. Apparently both work, even though Holy Basil was the preferred one if you could find it.  

I used this recipe from Chez Pim and added two fried eggs for J and one for me on top. I also faithfully asked for pork butt to be minced from the local wet market.

The result? Yumms!! There are a few things I would do differently next time to make it even better though: 

• chopped up the chili into finer pieces and add a little more chili (it wasn’t spicy enough). 
• Smash the garlic pieces a little 

Otherwise - an easy, savoury, comforting quick stir fry that takes minutes to whip up.

Paella and the Jumping Prawns

Paella, the making of, has been on my mind since dear KH convinced me how easy it is to make, especially with a paella pan. So when I visited her last month, I got one from Chef’s Hat - the kitchen supplies store in Melbourne, and have been eager to try it.

The pan has been challenging though - after being scrubbed clean, it turned rusty immediately - turns out you need to wipe it with a kitchen towel in oil to keep it rust free. After finally getting the rust out, J coated it with oil and it remained pristine until I was ready to cook.

Scoured tons of “authentic” recipes and finally arrived at this one that didn’t require oven baking and didn’t sound too complicated. If paella is the staple food of the Spanish, wouldn’t it be like fried rice to the chinese or pasta to the italians? and if so, surely it can’t be toooo complex.

Well - the moment I put olive oil into the pan, the entire pan started seriously smoking up - and more alarmingly, the oil turned Black. Erm, wasn’t sure if I should continue to use it after this... I desperately tried to wipe off the blackened pan (apparently normal - though I’m sure blackened oil isn’t) with towels but it didn’t stop coming up black. J wisely said, let’s just use the regular non-stick pan - I reluctantly agreed - couldn’t work out why this pan didn’t work when KH had always been using this one for her paella. But not wanting to poison us on new year’s eve, I switched.

Now - the live prawns. It was my first time cooking with live prawns - tips from the internet and experienced cooking friends say that I should put the live prawns in the fridge for about half an hour, so that when I remove them, they’re slightly stunned and I should be able to wash them/shell them etc without much drama. However, once the prawns were doused with water while I was washing them, they started twitching - I tell myself to be Brave, and quickly finished washing them, and put a plate over the bowl they were in.

When it was time to put in the prawns and the clams on top of the rice and other ingredients, I put in the prawns first - and well, expectedly, they started to leap in startled fashion from the pan - luckily I was quick on my feet (hands rather) and slapped the lid on top. They banged (poor things I know....) a little more against the pan, as I quickly piled in the clams, and finally surrendered to their paella fate. 

Followed ingredients and cooking instructions closely, and the recipe was pretty accurate, except for the part where it says 10-20 minutes to cook - it took me about 45 minutes. 

The result was heavenly - perhaps even more so because it was the most complicated recipe I’d undertaken to date (me the seriously beginner non-cook). The rice was moist and nicely infused with the stock and spices, and the seafood was fresh (well, they -were- live). We gobbled everything up. 

A final day of pasta, gelato, pizza - goodbye Roma

Last day in Italy, it's Christmas Eve. 

The plan today was to do the colosseum and the ruins, eat lots and lots and non-stop, as we’re getting on the plane tomorrow already.

Lunch was in place on a random street, Via Ostilia, near the colosseum, I was again craving large forkfuls of pasta.

We had three pasta dishes between the two of us and greedily gobbled everything up. It was more a wine place with bottles of wine lining the walls, and an extensive menu, including salads and of course, pasta. 

Penne in pomodoro and basil

Garganelli with a creamy shrimp sauce and chopped zucchini.

Tagliatelle with bolognaise

We gobbled every morsel up hungrily - this place was cheap and delicious!

Dinner, on christmas eve in Rome, meant that quite a few places were closed. We had taken a long walk after lunch and had a final wander through the streets, it was gently raining sporadically all day, which was annoying but we made do.

Managed to stop by the same gelato place (Della Plama) and this time had a triple scoop of Toronne (like the nougat), passion fruit (creamy, not sorbet) and grapefruit sorbet, to offset the creaminess of the other two flavours.

Again, my pasta craving surged, and I wanted to order several pasta dishes for dinner, at hopefully a more “traditional” italian place, this being our last meal on this trip. 

J persuaded me into two pasta dishes - spaghetti vongole and penne amatriciana (tomato sauce with sprinked parmesan and bacon bits), and a mozzarella and saucissa (sausage) pizza instead. The vongole was slightly undersalted but still tasty, and it fulfilled my craving of huge forkfuls of spaghetti. The amatriciana was good but could have done with more bacon - perhaps they were running out of supplies for christmas eve?! the pizza didn’t come with a tomato sauce base as expected, just a generous bed of mozzarella and sausage chunks. When we arrived, the restaurant only had a couple of tables occupied, but by the time our food arrived, it was overflowing with people - tourists or people not eating at home I suppose.

The night we trooped to St Peter’s Basilica and arrived in the middle of the Christmas Eve mass. It wasn’t as crowded as expected, perhaps because rain still threatened and came down sporadically in gentle waves. It was cold, and I was huddled in my puffy jacket. 

But how can one be in Rome on christmas eve and not be right there in its heart and soul? 

Goodbye Italy, till we meet again not too far in the distant future we hope.....

First full day in Rome - non stop eats

A Good eating day. Except for breakfast - 

The strength of this breakfast was much touted by the reviewers of this hotel (a primary reason for choosing this BnB), but we found the spread very so-so. There was a chocolate tart I wasn’t tempted enough to try, and a couple of warmed croissants which I didn’t try either. The scrambled eggs in a buffet warmed looked plentiful and fluffy, very yellow. But tasted of... nothing much. I ended up having couple of sweet clementines and calling it a day for breakfast.

Thankfully, lunch made up for it!

Lunch 

Borgo Antico

Borgo Pio, 21 00193 Roma

Tel 06 686 5967

• tortellini panna e proscuitto cotto (tortellini with ham in cream sauce) 
• gnocchi with alla Romana (with semola flour, burato, pecorino, sage, in tomato sauce) 
• patate all papalina (potatoes baked with melted cheese, mushrooms and truffles) 

We chanced across this restaurant on promising looking street near the Vatican/St Peter’s Basilica - Borgo Pio. Several ristorantes pizzerias lined the street, including tables and chairs al fresco that looked tantalising, if only it wasn’t about 8 degrees. I wondered why ristorantes in Rome seem to come hand in hand with “pizzeria” - many of the eateries had “Ristorantes Pizzeria” in their names, which wasn’t the case in the other cities we’d been in. Subliminally, I felt that these double-barreled names places didn’t offer good food - it felt like they were trying to cater to as wide a repertoire as possible, pasta, pizza, you want it, we got it.

One little place stood out - it looked quaint and small, without tables or chairs outside and it had the promising looking slow food (the little snail icon) on it. 

We were the first guests, and the sole elderly waiter (proprietor?) waved us in welcomingly with “prego” and we selected a corner table. He recommended the potato dish, saying that the cardinal orders this regularly(!), at least, from what we made out in his heavy Italian-accented English. I wanted to order that anyhow, but hesitated because of the already carb-heavy meal, and had originally ordered the eggplant until he suggested this.

They were all pretty good. 

The tortellini with ham in cream was something we’ve had not so long ago, but the cream in this one wasn’t overpowering, and was well balanced by the saltiness of the ham. The gnocchi, which I’d expected to be little dumplings, was in large plump round pillows, sprinkled liberally with cheese, and with a large dollop (but not submerged) of tomato sauce, subtly flavoured by the sage.

And the potatoes.... mmmm...... J said, aren’t cardinals fat?! I have no idea, but if I ate this every da, fat I would be - smothered in cheese and olive oil, with chopped truffle. Fragrant and steaming hot, I gobbled it up.

A french family of 7 (5 kids!!) came in soon after, then a mother and daughter, and then three men who had made a reservation, so the nice man was kept busy taking orders but found time to take a picture of us together, something we rarely do during our travels, so that was nice.

Hot chocolate at Sant Eustachio il caffe

My favourite food occurrences during travels is serendipitously and unknowingly finding an iconic place - we saw this coffee shop teeming with people and it turned out to be The Place for an espresso in Rome, judging by the crowds at the bar and queuing up to purchase tickets. It also offered chocolate covered espresso beans, coffee ground and in beans to go in its distinctive yellow packaging, and various sweet items. Spied a review from NY times from years ago that sang its praises. We had the hot chocolate, it was molten but not too molten (like the one in bologna) - a perfect pre-dinner pick me up.

Gelato!!!!

Della Palma Gelato di Roma

via della Maddelena, 19/23

Tel: 06 6880 6752

dellapalma.it

I’d been mooning for gelato for the last two days, and the ones in Rome near the Vatican looked watery and sad, which I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by. Della was on the way to the dinner area near the Pantheon, and crowded with twittering teenage schoolgirls.

Flavours were varied and interesting, I counted about 140, and there was a soy-only selection as well. They had a near-black coloured nutella (my all time favourite) and two other variations of nutella. Other noteworthy flavours I recognized (all in italian) were profiterole, chocolate with peppers, kitkat with yougurt, mars and bounty (like the candy bars), millefoglie (looked like a millefueille?!), zuppa inglese (english trifle! like the dessert the other night!), creme caramel. The sorbet selection was extensive too, including persimmon, grapefruit, lemon. 

It was hard to choose only two flavours, and in the end, I ended up with a piccolo Biscotti and Nutella with variation. Delish! must come back tomorrow!

Dinner at Vini e Buffet

Pizza della Toretta, 60 00186 Roma

Tel 06 687 1445

Pumpkin pate with toast 

Anchovies and butter with toast 

Rice salad with cherry tomatoes, shrimp, basil, zucchini 

Couscous with chicken (with chickpeas, carrots, spicey chopped tomatoes, parsley) 

Dinner was at another place we chanced across - the menu wasn’t the expected pasta primis and main course secondis - and offered tasting items, an extensive salad selection, along with hot items like pasta and couscous, crostini, pates. It remain firmly closed at 7pm although the sign said 7pm at the door. We looped around and returned at 730pm, and were waved in by another Italian elderly gentleman, who said he was just opening but please come in from the cold. 

People started congregating in the bar area near the kitchen - staff? family, friends? they didn’t seem like dinnering guests, and it was all very convivial.  

We enjoyed taking a break from pasta and the meat filled main courses, and the couscous was especially delicious with a touch of spice. Anchovies and butter were an interesting combination, although J would have preferred more items to be hot (the toast was hot but cooled rapidly in the cold, and the couscous was hot).

Overall, a reasonably successful eating day!

And finally - Roma.

Final breakfast at the Malaspina - we had the same things - bread with soft mild cheese, proscuitto, boiled ham, butter. Juice. Tea. Scrambled eggs with the same fabulous bacon. Spoonfuls of the marmalade and fig jam, which I'd taken to eating directly off the spoon.

Off we went to Rome directly after -  a three hour drive from San Donato in Poggio. 

On a whim, I wanted to do a quick stop by the Space outlet in Montevarchi to see if anything Prada was worth being ravished - it was about the same as the Prada at The Mall, couple of classic items, a Neverfull-esque canvas bag in several colours that I was tempted by, but vetoed in the end. The shoes were pretty good though, there was a kitten heeled pair in patent with a silver hard bow, in black, grey, beige. I didn’t succumb...Felt silly walking out with nothing again... especially when the Other Asians toted many carriers. Oh well.

Tried looking for lunch in town, there was a recommendation by a visitor to Space - finally hunted down the osteria and they were opened but said that they were out of food and we’d have to wait at least 30 mins (!). So... seriously starving and disappointed, we wanted to head straight to Rome to catch some time, as the sun goes down by around 4ish, and we were sure it would be challenging finding our way to the hotel, then car rental to drop off the car.

On the way to the A1 autostrada, Lo and Behold, there was a tempting looking sign pointing out an osteria, and we followed it, and a couple minutes later, ended up having a delicious late lunch - yay!

Lunch - Al Solito Posto

Di Ascione E C SNC

Via Dante

Terranuova

Tel: 0555/9199712

The restaurant was spacious and could easily have accommodated about thirty tables or more. Just 3 tables were occupied when we arrived. We ordered and gobbled down the tagliolini with gamberetti and zuchinn and risotto capesante e vongole. The pasta came smothered in a creamy, prawn-bisque sauce, with buttery zucchini, and a couple of small but fresh prawns. The risotto capesante e vongole was almost like wet-ish paella rice, fragrant with saffron and tiny clams, scallops and other seafood bits I couldn’t identify.

Dinner - Casella di Trastevere Ristorante

After literally hours of driving around Rome’s illogical roads that didn’t lead to where it said it would on the map and GPS, we arrived exhausted at the Hotel Santa Maria, another well regarded B and B by the TA community. It was in the restaurant and bar filled Trastevere area, one of the main reasons I chose for us to stay here.

After dropping our luggage, we dashed out to eat in the area. Augusto was an osteria that looked busy and crowded, and we wanted to go in there but decided to go for a quieter spot - and ended up in this other place perpendicular to Augusto in the same piazza. 

Primi Piatti

Zuppa di Verdure (vegetable soup with chunks of chick peas, green peas, beans) 

Penne Staccio something (this was the pasta of the day - good old tomato based with mozzarella) 

Secondi Piatti

Pollo Peperoni (chicken in tomato sauce) 

Spigola Fresca (grilled whole fish with lemon)

The meal was satisfying and more than above average - I got to eat big forkfuls of dear tomato and cheese pasta the old fashioned plain way, and it was nice to have a whole fish freshly grilled. J devoured the fish, picking through all the bones, and we shared the chicken. As it happens, Hong Kong is going through the chicken culling again... for H1N1, and no chickens will be on sale from now till mid January, so J said, we better have chicken here. 

I think I have been seriously disappointed by italian desserts, except for Gelato (Must Have Lots Of Gelato Tomorrow) - wasn’t even tempted to have a dessert, and I’m a huge fan generally. Always the same old chocolate mousse, creme caramel, creme catalina, panna cotta, tiramisu. 

Casella di Trastevere Ristorante

Piazza de Renzi 31/A

00153 Rome

Tel: 06 58 00 158

casettaditrastevere.it