Emma, 2 of my classmates and I went out for dinner at Hannah's bistro.
7/10 for food. 2/10 for service. I won't go back again.
The setting was simple. No big deal.
Since I don't usually have fish - I indulged myself and had white fish served with arugula and pesto pasta. It was pretty good.
Jill had chocolate brulee i.e. chocolate mousse and the caramelized sugar crust. Also quite tasty. But not exceptional.

The end of a fantastic weekend with great friends. Back to data analysis and reading articles..
Well, I can always look forward to mommy's coming! The countdown begins. :)

Goodies from Montreal

I had visitors from Montreal. But now they have all left. :(
Anyway, Alexis brought mommy and my favourite dessert - creme brulee...
heehee.
Satisfaction!!

We went to Toronto on Friday and I finally ate good dimsum! :D The thousand layer cake was terrible though - nothing compared to the dimsum restaurant in Australia. But they had this 4 "taster" dessert thing. Very nice!
Anyway, here are the action shots.




















hehehe. It was a really good time. Karen took us to Pacific mall, the largest Asian mall around. It looks like Hong Kong! It's a mini HK in Toronto. We came back at 5.10pm and hung around in Kitchener to meet Emma at 7.15pm. Her train was delayed till 7.45pm. We came home and had pizza. :)

saturday coffee dates

Today my friends and I finally managed to follow through a 'date' we've been planning for a few weeks now. We needed to get away from the base and from everyone and we needed good coffee. It was initially only Elisha and I but then Rob wanted to go to the Christian bookstore and then Chris as well. So, the 4 of us trooped to town with MJ in tow (MJ just wanted the company to walk into town with)

Elisha, Rob (PEB 2), MJ and Chris (PEB 1). PEB stands for Proper English Boy. They really are very very proper. So yau ying right the picture. Oh, and Elisha's from Alabama, USA.

This is my long awaited Skinny Mocha from Muffin Break. I can't believe that that's almost the best option I have.....arrgghhh...for my Melbourne cafes.

The other DTS-ers that were out and about town. Kelda from Switzerland, Jenny from England, Elisha, me and Emily from England.

And this is Elisha and I walking home. I got the boys to carry my shopping bags. *grin*

p.s. It was actually raining earlier in the morning while I was doing my QT. So, I prayed and asked God to stop the rain. I said, I don't even want to bring an umbrella. I said please. A lot. AND HE STOPPED THE RAIN!! So nice horrr...God, the great weatherman. hahahhaa

Gotta dannnnncceee

This is super duper funny..

Snowing is blowing with bocia and cookies

Today was an alright day. It's been snowing non stop, very cold. :)
Che: you look very nice singing in the rain. heh.

Went out for dinner with my classmate, D. It was a good time. Been going for prayer meeting the whole week. That's also pretty good. I hope that I will get to know them. Some of the guys seem pretty cool.
Anyway, I wanted to make foccacia..ever since I read this. I didn't make that many changes, just added gouda cheese on top. :D

And then yesterday, I wanted to bake something. I'm running out of ingredients though. Anyway, I had some stuff at hand, and after looking at several recipes, I settled on this. (I might also try this..) It seems that many people like soft cookies, I prefer harder cookies. I don't have chocolate nibs so I replaced with chocolate chips. The addition of the fleur de sel really does make a difference. Somehow finding that grain of salt ..make a big difference. You would think that it would melt, or that it wouldn't fit with the sweetness/chocolatey goodness of the cookie, but somehow the salt makes you crave something more.

I guess that's us - the salt of the earth. The salt didn't melt or blend in with the sweetness, but it stood out. And once you tasted it, mmm - it tasted good. The palate was pleased. :)
You are in the world but not of the world.

Cookie on a cup. :)

Before I forget, Gong Hei Fatt Choi. I miss CNY and wish I was home to celebrate it with you guys. Love you all - say hi to the family.

pussycat, pussycat where have you been?

I've been to London to see the queen..

Technically, this chocolate wasn't from London and I didn't even eat it there. This was the french chocolate SN gave me in Glasgow. I have actually been taking photos of it after every bite. Kinda like a photo journal :) It is VERY VERY nice...

This is Big Ben. Note that I got the time at exactly noon. Penny made me take photos of Big Ben from about 4 angles and at 4 different times. She actually wanted me to take a lot more photos but I got bored of Big Ben.

We found a quiet street and I wanted to do Singing In The Rain. I was falling off when Penny took this.

oooooo....and this is part of the display window of Paul's. It's a patisserie between Oxford Circus tube and All Souls church. It's YUMMMYYYY!!! I only had a macaroon from there cause it is also very expensive. I wanted to try the brioche there but I was too full :( Oh well, next time.

real food coming soon

So, there has only been cafeteria food as of yet...well, boarding school food for me so far. But last week, my small group went out for coffee and I had a scone too! The coffee was cold-ish and wayyyy too sweet and the scone came dry without any cream or jam or butter. So sad hor. Even the tea at the White Room in Glasgow sounds appealing now. How I regret taking all the coffee shops in Melbourne for granted.


Never fear though. I'll be going down to London tomorrow. First up is AL's birthday dinner at some fancy schamcy pub on Friday night. Then, on Saturday, I hope to visit the list of food shops Aunty SY gave me. Fingers crossed...hehee..and lets hope I have enough cash :)

I couldn't decide how to arrange the pictures on this post, so they are kinda random. The first is my roommate's cream bun. It was...bad.

Tiramissuuuuuu

Hi hi again!
so many posts. Yeah, I'm making up for my absence.
heheh.

Anyway, I saw Cream Puff's tiramisu recipe and I thought - mm...tiramisu!
heheh. Apparently I'm really easy to influence. :)

I bought a packet of ladies fingers but they tasted AWFUL!! :( So, I thought - why not? WHY not indeed?? So I made my own. I used the Cordon Bleu recipe.
It was excellent. Easy and tasty. So, I ate one..:(
But I later regretted it because I didn't have enough for my tiramisu. haha. So I had to use 2 of the packet ones. They disintegrate really really quickly.
Instead of piping the ladies fingers I just made blobs. hehe. Too much trouble to pipe and I don't have a pastry bag.

Anyway, I searched high and low for a suitable tiramisu recipe. I didn't want to use heavy cream so I used this one by Nick Stellino! If it's good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for Sook Ning! :D
I know, the recipe requires many eggs. I used 7 eggs and cooked the egg yolks (sort of). Didn't really change anything. Was thinking of serving it with roasted hazelnuts.
Anyway, without further ado..

:)

Pizza night

Last saturday I went over to Kristin's and we had pizza night. :)
If you recall, I made pizza a couple of months ago. I used the same recipe and made bozza. hehe.
I'm getting better at it and I am getting a better idea of how the dough should be like.
Anyway, it was pretty good. I made 2 batches - one higher in hydration (very hard to handle) and one lower in hydration. I mixed cake and bread flour to get a mix that I felt was closer to the italian flour's protein content.
yupyup! :D
heheh. I sound so clever. lol

Here is Sara laying on the toppings.

And here is Kristin and her roommate.
And finally - a pizza!

I should have some sort of clever and witty introduction..but I have none. :(

Breakfast and curds

Hi.
Amboi, lama tak jumpa. :)
Research is going well, a little busy. Y'know lah - trying to save the world..*wipe sweat off brow*. Yes, it's hard being the tomb raider. heehee.

Kristin came over for breakfast. We were talking about Montreal and thought we should do breakfast. I made cinnamon raisin french bread. It was really good. Bobo never fails to produce tasty yummy light bread. :)
She brought over fruits and yogurt and had her french toast with chocolate chips. mm.
I had mine with jam and nutella. heehee.


Anyway, the meyer lemon ordeal wasn't over yet...So lemon curd it was. I used the recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini.
It was really good - I had to hand stir the mixture with my Kitchen Aid's "whisk" because I don't have a real whisk. heh.
And what could be better than lemon curd..on meringue?
heheh. That's right. Voila! I also made lemon bars and gave them away.
:)