salad with passion fruit dressing

this was ad hoc. i couldn't put the leaves back in the fridge, err.. actually i didn't want to coz i didn't have dinner. so i had baby spinach and Red Coral lettuce. i had 3 passion fruit at hand, but i needed protein somehow. Well, i have ham? Hmm, but i didn't want repeats since it's going to be for tomorrow's menu. Checked the fridge and i found my bag of bonito flakes and some leftover walnuts!


so my ad hoc salad consist of these:

1) walnuts
2) red coral lettuce
3) baby spinach
4) bonito flakes


the dressing is made of these:

1) passion fruit
2) 1 teaspoon of honey
3) QP Chuka dressing which consists of sesame seed oil, vinegar and some other stuff and something spicy


incidentally, though i like passion fruit quite a bit, i have never exactly eat it from the actual fruit itself. so this was the first time. Guess what? i had problem cutting it open. Apparently, though the outer layer of skin is quite tough, the inner layer is a bed of cushion for the flesh and seeds! so interesting! i have seen how the innards look like, but today is the first time i see the whole fruit in its entirety! so cool!

this is how a passion fruit looks like.. before it's being cut

after it's being cut

after it's being emptied

i tasted the juice which dripped, it's pretty sour so i knew i needed some sweetness to it if i am going to make it into a sauce. i had honey, one teaspoon is really sufficient (well, for me at least coz my level of sourish tolerance is quite high). thereafter, i added the Japanese salad dressing to give it more oomph. mix them nicely together and then drizzled on top of the salad. i gave the leaves and walnuts with the dressing a toss and finally added the bonito flakes.

the salad leaves

prepping the dressing

close to completion

here's the bonito salad with passion fruit dressing!

my conclusion? Surprisingly, the whole salad is very refreshing and quite yummy. The savoury bonito flakes with its little bit of burnt smell, mixed together with the crunchy red coral leaves and the more intense taste of the baby spinach gave the whole salad a lot of texture. with that little bit of sourish and slightly wettish dressing gives the salad quite a punch. best of all, the seeds of the passion fruit gives that crispy bite in every mouthful.


hmm.. one thing though, it feels like i am eating yummy paper.. err you know what i mean right?? Bonito flakes have that papery feel to it! hee hee.

Sandwich breakie to beat the Monday Blues

due to yesterday's overwhelming heatwave which hit my head badly, i forgot to get a couple of ingredients from Jasons. After having kopi with LC and rojak sesh at OAR she tompang me to Parkway Cold Storage. Price difference between Jasons and CS is about 30 cents. I bought the following in the supermart.


1) Philly Smoked Salmon cheese spread (which i totally heart for the longest time)
2) Honey Baked Ham
3) Royal White Bread by Gardenia
4) Passion fruit


I bought all my salad leaves yesterday. Romania, baby spinach and Red Coral lettuce.


my plan for Monday was to make sandwiches and a side salad to accompany it. i found out later, i was too ambitious, i've plucked too many romania lettuce leaves and the whole sandwich got more leaves than ham even though i've already put in two slices. Actually, the 'butcher' at Cold Storage gave me the different one which i wanted. they apparently had two types of honey baked ham, i guess the ones i wanted was the shaved ones. Reason for choosing the shaved ones is coz they are lighter? can anyhow arrange? and gives you different amount of ham in a mouthful. i dunno why i so polite, i actually ok-ed that he gave me the nicely sliced ones.. arghh... i feel so like a 'carrot' again.. tmd!


the photos documents the whole process. not easy to take pics and make the sandwich within a short span of time to ensure the freshness of the ham. Somehow, i managed. Off to the pictorials.

Romania lettuce, mini plum tomatoes, Philly smoked salmon cheese spread and honey baked ham

Gardenia's take on thick Japanese bread?

spreaded just enough cheese to cover the entire two thick slices of bread

stacking 'em up!

err, see what i mean that lettuce more than ham? i omitted the salad and made it into dinner

i think i don't have to eat lunch tomorrow. oh another reason why i wanted to make the sandwich? So that i don't become 'carrot' again and get 'chopped' by Simply Sandwich coz something like that may have cost erm $7??.. :p

Leave Day 1 - 2nd half - Din @ Naive

so dinner at Naive did happen and boy was i glad i finally went there. It was a plus coz i was happy to share the meal with Dad and Mum. I'm glad the day's decision went on well all the way.


what struck me about Naive was it's signage when it first 'established' its presence in Katong. it caught my attention one day when i was on the way to work in bus no. 16 and was intrigued by what this new place in katong is for. so i searched the web and couldn't find any info. I thought it was a graphic design firm coz it didnt look very foodie. so another day i walked pass, i realised it was selling food. i thought it was either coz the food sucks as such no one talked about it or, it's too new and people are unaware about it.


anyway, it's quite hard to miss it especially since they put up a big banner citing 'WE ARE OPEN'. the colour of the banner is red and the words white. against a background which i thought was almost white and i realised it isn't really the case coz they painted the building in stripes and shades of different greens and creams. i love the colours very calm and soothing just like the food.

the pleasant interior, zenish and chic

naive art! very cool, attracted my attention too!

so i shall cut the crap and go down on the food. i ordered 5 dishes for the three of us. 6 if you include the olive rice.


the first thing which arrived was a small mortar of white and black sesame seeds with a wooden pestle. this was termed the 'BLOSS' ceremony - Blessing of the Sesame Seeds. Mum did the grinding and she seemed to enjoy it lots. i say, it's a damn unique start to having food. kinda like a prayer, but instead of words, it was an action performed. makes it so much more symbolic!


i did my research in HGW and found out that if you mentioned HGW prior to ordering you get a 1 for 1 main course. means you pay the price of 1 main but you get 2 instead. So i ordered 'Enchanted Forest' and 'We Em-brace'. it was really worth it and of course you pay the price of the more expensive item.


what hit me about these two dishes, the monkey head mushrooms used to cook these dishes have zlich taste of mushroom. i didn't even think that i was eating mushroom.


The cubes in 'Enchanted Forest' tasted like chicken breast meat to me. they added broccoli (love it that it's still crunchy and fresh), wolfberry and fa cai. there's a bit of 'tang gui' too! i'm not sure what the sauce is made of, but it's better than oyster sauce man! As for the cubes of mushrooms, there was a bit of coating of corn flour if i am not wrong and it was stir fried first before the sauce was added. this coating enhanced the taste of the mushroom and it was good!


for 'We Em-brace' it has a bit of soup. this time the mushroom tasted a bit like fried fish to me. it's not exactly the melt in your mouth kind but a bit chewy. i can't really describe the taste, maybe it's a little more like frog leg? hmm.. the dish came with chinese cabbage and wolfberries too.


i also ordered 3 side dishes. I am a sucker for lotus root with peanuts, so i had to get 'Peaceful Plant'! And it was delish! question in my mind was, gee.. without meat, how did the liquid which came along with the lotus roots and peanuts taste so wonderful! it tasted like lotus root pork rib soup but even better. it has a slight minute tinge of spiciness which was really pleasant and made it even more appetizing! I couldn't stop drinking the soup and i don't know how long they cooked this dish. somehow, the lotus root didn't turn soggy and it was still damn crunchy but also soaked up the essence of the soup and the peanuts too! i am also a sucker for food which requires chewing and not those nuah types. oh one thing though, i had a rude suprise when i bit on a piece of spice i can't remember the name though.

i love my baos lots!!

the other side was the 'Black and White'. It was braised mushroom in cinnamon sauce served with steam buns (2) and guess what, it actually tasted like KONG BA BAO without the kong ba (fatty meat) but it was good enough and tasty even. who would know that such combination could also be so darn heavenly!! whoooo!


we had the battered organic oyster mushroom too. the batter i'd say is damn shiok! it has a savory tinge to it. very fragrant and light. eaten together with the accompanied sauce which i am pretty sure there's passion fruit in the mixture, it's a wonderful combination and a definite must try. Eat it when it's hot too!


our rice was called 'Oliver Twist' and initially expected it to be an overpowering taste of olive, but OMG! It damn fragrant. didn't even taste the olive at all. in it i think they added finely chopped mushrooms too! i think i can eat two bowls of this rice if i didnt order so many dishes!!

the drinks menu which was not on the website.

the next thing i must recommend is this drink 'Sour Power'. I love sourish stuff too! This drink is good. it came presented in 3 layers. the bottom most is the sour plum mixture or whatever you call it. then came a layer of lemon and the top most is the bubbly, it's probably soda water. it's damn nice and damn big. drink until you full ah! So it's pretty worth it actually!


i'd recommend this place to everyone. got to try it and be surprised! in total i spent $68 hmm, may sound expensive for vegetarian dish, but i think it to be ok. i think monkey head mushrooms are not cheap right?

obsessed with DIY salad

okay, i have been making salad for breakie for the last couple of mornings. hmm.. is it an obsession or is it just plain therapeutic? i don't know.. i just know that the trips to the supermarket has resulted in a variety fruits, vege and meat being bought.


today i saw cheap blueberries (pity they were sour though), fresh looking wild rocket in that you don't see any rotten bits here and there, and i bought oak leaves lettuce too! I kinda mistaken them for buttercup lettuce initially. Cold Storage also had smoked virgina ham on sale! so i just had to buy the stuff and bring 'em home to fully utilize my remaining coral lettuce, pessimons and tomatoes. didn't add pomegranate this time as blueberry itself has anti-oxidant too. i will the pomegranate for another time. all these grocery shopping due to picking up a pair of altered pants from Isetan Mango. Fortunately, i didn't succumbed to temptation and went for laksa instead from my fave stall. i decided no way i am going to do that coz i just finished hip hop class earlier..


so any with cheap and good ingredients, i made my breakie for tomorrow. i am torn between using the onion dressing or the kurozu dressing.. hmm.. i will prolly use the latter and then also add Parmesan cheese!

i like the appetizing colours. and i had to take this shot coz of the design of the plastic bowl!!

hee can't wait for the salad tomorrow!! :D

here's my Thursday breakie upclose! TGIT!!

salad for breakie

decided to prep some salad for tomorrow's breakie and to de-stress a bit. still feeling the woes of the week that passed and the horrid weather sure aint making things any better. i feel close to giving up. unfortunately, i can't. sad and harsh reality of life. sighz, i still feel depress. wonder how soon i can rid or move myself off this phase which seldom make its appearance these days.


no wonder i have problems getting rid of it..


anyway, off to salad. i discovered coral lettuce recently. i much prefer the purplish ones as they have more punch, flavour and are slightly savoury with a tad of bitterness when it touches the ends of your tongue before you swallow. i made a smaller version yesterday sans the pear. and because the season of korean strawberries is over (don't bother with the aussie or the amercian ones coz they are never as sweet) i thought my anti oxdiant supplies were gone too. Fortunately, the appearance of pomegranates saved my day!

Coral lettuce in vibrant green and brownish purple?

i have a love hate relationship with pomegranates. love it coz the ruby reds of smallish seeds are packed with loads of juice when i crunch them with my molars. reward comes in the form of sweet juice and it's always refreshing with it's slight acidic taste.

the entire ingredients

hate it coz to get the seeds out are not entirely the easiest thing to do. i am a perfectionist when it comes to getting the seeds off their soft bed of cushion. i hate it when the seeds bursts and the juice pops out when not inside my mouth. so i am always careful and make sure they are perfect. as such, it takes a lot of time to completely get all the seeds out. thereafter, yellowish residue will stain my fingers and will take ages to get rid. but well, it's all worth it for the yummy bursts of natural sweetness.

the final product

am contemplating if i should add cheese. i most definitely will if i have time in the morning tomorrow which i highly doubt i'd have any. dressing which goes best with this is the japanese onion dressing. it highly compliments the coral lettuce. great to start the day with yummy breakie and healthy too!

running

hmm.. so i went running with CH and Kenny last weds and i definitely didnt have that much stamina as either of them. they ran all the way to concorde, i stopped mid way.


they told me that even if i stopped halfway, i could start walking back. and walked i did. as they continued their run, i started to walk back. as i walked, i saw nice sunset and captured this shot. which i kenar suanned thereafter... :s

sunset by the SG flyer

strawberries & cabbage salad

hmm.. had the same thing today, had my DSLR ready, so i decided to take some pics.

cut strawberries on top of a bed of cabbage

the uber tasty kurozu dressing!

After adding the dressing.. yum yum

after tossing the salad.. now it's ready to be eaten! :D

ascending the bukit timah nature reserve

matchbox 20's 'Jenny' rang away at 5.10am and i fretted. darn, i got my timing wrong. i think mum was referring to 5.50am instead of the former. i went back to sleep, changed the next alarm timing and i laid partially awake contemplating if i should go or not.


undecided, i dozed off to total darkness again. 5.50am came and prior to that mum was already washing up and getting ready to go. so, got up i did and surprisingly, was quite awake given the fact i didnt catch minute winks in the loo. haha..


went to pick up cuz Pei San and another uncle and two aunts and we head off to Bt Timah NR.


when we reached there, there were already no parking lots. looked pretty crowded already and hello, the time was like 7am!? never knew so many SGporeans are such early birds. cuz and i contemplate walking off the normal track but decided to stick to the paved road track up. dunno if the decision was right or wrong. when we embarked on our journey up, what seemed like a simple trail up turned out to be pretty torturous as we ascended.


since when was bukit timah hill so bloody steep?? i thought to myself. moving up the first steep slope i was close to giving up and didn't think i could continue. breathing was heavy and i was panting like siao! didn't even bother to notice the flora or fauna, i was having stitches on my waist and experiencing tightening of muscles on my calves. i so wonder if i could continue to go up.


anyway, we managed to encourage each other to continue on and we reached the summit before we knew it. all through the way up, i only managed to take one interesting shot and it became my fave shot of the day. Pics below.

mating butterflies/moths?

and we finally reached the summit

ah pek doing cooling down exercise

father and daughter stopped for a short while and left

2 friends resting

apparently the snake has been there for 17 days in the same position

a lucky shot. only wanted to take the flower, found an insect on it too

dunno what plant this is, but thought it was interesting

grasshoppers i suppose? interestingly wonder why the insects come in pairs all the time

will i go back again? hell yes, one of my resolution for 2009 and the fact that i started, there's no reason for me to stop for the time being.. :D


after that, we headed to cong pang for breakie and i had chee cheong fan. didn't want to take sinful stuff, but my goodness!! the market's not only bustling with activities, nearly all stalls had queues!?! though i must say the price is not exactly the cheapest!! it was quite facinating!

the cong pang chee cheong fan.. quite yummy but costs $4!!
chilli's good and sauce - yummy

in short, the morning was pretty fun and quite an eye opener. hope i don't get muscle cramps tomorrow morning. :p

more things japanese

so i went grocery shopping earlier on. no plans as to exactly what i wanted to get, but i knew i wanted to get greens and lady's fingers were on top of my mind. so i ended up getting a couple of greens, canned tomatoes from HUNT's and i also got salmon sashimi as well as natto.


the taste of the maguro natto lingered so much in my mind that i so wanted to try more of it. i was just worried the kind of natto i was buying, didn't know if they tasted the same or are there any different. so i went to Cold Storage to check it out and realised that there were only two brands. one with the funny japanese doll face and another one nicely packed into 3 cups, organic and i dunno if it's because it's pretty green packaging attracted me to buy more than anything else, in the end i just got it. hoping it would taste exactly like the one i tasted the other day.


it's simple enough to make. coz everything was already prepped, you just need to mix everything together.

the green cup, came in a set of 3

the sticky natto!! see those silky strands!?

the super yummy soy sauce. so flavourful and not overly salty

the mediocre salmon sashimi.. haha..

i didnt take a pic of the final product in view of the fact that it is not very pleasant to look at. but it tastes delish enough and pretty yummy. i added a dash of lemon juice coz the salmon came with a slice of lemon and added the soy sauce in the sashimi set, with some wasabi as well.


ultimately, i think natto tasted better with maguro than salmon. but i am surprised that the natto itself is pretty good. hmm.. a good addiction for the new year i gather?? Haha..

1st meal for the new year

thought i was going eat more fruits for the new year, so i started with all things red and orange. haha i had nectarine, korean strawberries and a quarter portion of papaya. anyway, i could only find these in the fridge. love the colour and also i love my fruits crunchy and sweet. this fruitty meal was pretty fulfilling until..

fruitty meal for 2009!

my bro passed me his stash of cookies from the cookie museum.

so weird? louis 16 and lust?? hmm..

that's how the cookie looked like

guess what ingredients made up the cookie? it had choc chips, lotus seeds, mocha and lychee. hmm.. interesting mixture aint it? it tastes quite nice, just unfortunate that the lotus seeds are kinda bitter. you can entirely taste the lychee of which for a moment i forgot what the taste was. in all, i can't say that they blend well together. i can only say that there are various taste of surprise in every bit.


well, sometimes food can bring lots of surprise too! in the end, i had roasted pork ribs rice for lunch and then snacked on my snack stash for dinner as i slept the evening away. haha.. darn, feel damn fat that night!! Haha :D