9 posts tagged “dinner”

Strawberry shooter @ Tao's

For starters, we had a gratin which we ate with the bread sticks. I heart the bread sticks which was soft and fluffy. The waiter even offered to pack some back for us, but I forgot about it... I really like the bread...

After the starter was followed by the strawberry shooter and the salads. We each ordered a salad. I thought a ham and potato salad wouldn't go wrong... well it did, the presentation wasn't appetising and the salad wasn't fantastic. Comparing the chicken salad (Farmboy splendor) with NYDC's salad, Tao's offered a better salad but I wish the portion was as big as NYDC's. :) The fruit salad was some fruits with crab sticks. Forgettable.

I love almost any kind of mushrooms and these two dishes satisfied my palate. I especially like the soup which was creamy and yet the taste wasn't overpowering. The grilled mushroom was garlicky and just the way I like it.

We each ordered a main course and sampled each other's. I must say I enjoyed my choice of a prime rib eye steak the most. The steak was cooked beautifully and the meat was tender and juicy. D's fish was good too. Crispy skin (not easy to cook) and tasted fresh. L's lamb was alright, but just my least fave among the three main courses.

I didn't try the rest of the dessert except for my green tea cheese cake which wasn't that great. Texture was on the hard side and green tea taste overpowered the cheese. 

Verdict

I will definitely visit the place again. Like their service. Food was good. You can tell that the restaurant takes pride and put its heart into the cooking.

Last but not least. Photos with the girls and a fussy baby.

Made a lasagna to host a friend last night. Surfed the Internet for recipe ideas as my stash of cook books doesn't provide a suitable recipe. I don't usually follow a recipe to a T and would adapt from about 2 recipes to make my own. Lasagna is tasty, but it requires many ingredients. I didn't know about it! Since it's my first try, I simplified whatever I could so that we would all have a dinner. Well, the taste was quite good, but hopefully I can improve the look next time. :)

Easy Lasagna
Serves 3

Ingredients:
150gm of lean beef, minced and seasoned
3 garlic sausages (you can use minced pork), thinly sliced
4pc of ham, sliced
1 big onion, minced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
100gm of tomato puree
200ml of Italian pasta sauce
30ml of water
6 pc of Non-boiled Lasagna (should use 9pc)
2/3 a tub of low fat Ricotta cheese
100gm of fresh mozzarella cheese , thinly sliced
250gm of mozzarella cheese
1 egg
Parsley
Black pepper
Olive oil

Steps:

1. Cook the meat, sausages, ham, onion and garlic till browned
2. Add Puree, pasta sauce, water and season according to taste
   
3. Bring mixture to boil and simmer till the mixture is moist
   
4. Mix the Ricotta cheese, egg, parsley
   
5. Pre-heat oven to 190°c
6. Spread a thin layer of meat mixture on a baking dish, add ricotta cheese mixture, fresh mozzarella cheese. Lay lasagna noodle on top. Repeat this step.
   
7. Cover the dish with aluminium foil and put into oven to bake for 20 mins
8. Take out the dish, uncover, check whether the top layer of noodle has absorbed the moisture. Spread the packet of mozzarella cheese on top. Put back into oven.
   
9. Bake till cheese turned brown.
   

I made dinner last night and the result was rather satisfying. I took some pictures too... (i hate my camera now!) tho in the first place, my dishes dun look that appetising...

Cream of mushroom

Cream of mushroom
Serves 2

Ingredients
6 bown mushroom, sliced
6 shitake mushroom, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
100ml of light sour cream
1 1/2 cup of chicken stock
1 tspn of Thyme
Olive oil
Grounded black pepper
Salt (opt)

Steps

1. Sauté the onion till soft (about 5 mins)
2. Add the mushroom & thyme, and continue to sauté for 10-15 mins
3. Add chicken stock into the pan and bring to boil
4. Using a food processor, purée the mixture
5. Pour back the mixture into the pan and add cream, use low fire to bring to simmer

Seafood baked rice

White sauce
Ingredients
50gm of unsalted butter
50gm of plain flour
300gm of milk

I cooked hubb and myself dinner last night and it's the first time since I have been a SAHW. All went quite well though I forgot to season the patties I made. Haha. I didn't expect cooking a three dish meal would take me such a long time... nearly 3hrs. :O Consider that I could whip up a quick lunch for myself in less than half an hour.

These are simple home made dishes but nevertheless they tasted alright. Hubb remarked that I have really become domesticated. Haha. Let's see what I have made....

• Soup: corn, onions, carrots, potato, spare ribs n chicken strips. I usually made ABC soup for my lunch and this is a slight twist to ABC soup
• Meat patties: Beef and pork. I forgot to season this but I tried deglazing and made a nice sauce for the patties, so all well is well. +1 point for me for trying deglazing and for the first time successfully!
• Stir-fried tapioca leaves: First time I cooked this vege and it turned out very well. This is hubb's favourite dish out of the three and he's not known to graze!

Tonight's menu is chicken stew. Hope this will turn out successful. I didn't had any luck with the beef stew I made some time back and which I had for 2 days coz I hate to waste food. *cross fingers*

*I must eat when I feel hungry or I turn into some grouchy food monster!

I am so glad that I managed to recover the photos I have taken over the past few months. The damn SD was corrupted! So here I am, spending a couple of hours to put up the photos. Click on the thumbnail to find more description.

Dinner at Boss, Vivocity
Chinese food with some different visual representation.

Meeting Wu Wei Cai
A local author who is based in Beijing now. Needless to say, I <3 his writings.  I remember that day was beautifully sunny.

Babies!
Below you see Angela's boy, ZH.

Angela's boy

2 comments

And move on to view Joie's little sumo yoga princess! :P

Our 5th year anniversary
My darling hubb treated us to Morton's steakhouse to celebrate this occasion.

It's alive!

Shanghai people got to be the closest I will get to sample Shanghai food without visiting Shanghai or China. I came across recommendation of this restaurant in the ieat blog, one of the local foodie blog that I frequent and we tried this place last week.

The xiao long bao was good and comparable with Ding Tai Feng or Crystal Jade. I love its sweet broth. I tend to nip off a small part of the skin and allows the juice to flow out unto the soup spoon which then I can savour the broth. Then I dip the xlb into the vinegar and top it off with the accompanying julienned ginger slices. Wah, thinking about it made me wish that I can have some xlb <3 now. :D~~ Yes, I am ok from the food poisoning!

The other dishes were great too. We particularly liked meicai kourou (stewed meat with presrved vege) and the sheng jian bao (fried bun). I liked the friend noodles, and hubb preferred the pork chop noodles. Hope you can try the food too.

I had ditched hubb to have dinner with misawong on the weekend. She has flown back to US and won't be back till Xmas. We had Ding Tai Feng in Paragon shopping mall and I am so glad that she likes the place (my recommendation). IMO this is the best DTF branches among all others in Singapore. We have a nice chat about baby, parenting and even technology stuff. Hope to see her again over the Xmas holiday. =)

I started taking my driving lesson over the weekend too. It's been quite a while since I last drove a car. I passed my advance theory test 2 weeks ago! :) Good for me that I can drive fairly well. On top of gotten a car recently, my eyes are opened, in the sense that I noticed the lack of driving ettiquette in the Singaporean drivers. During my lesson, I was crawling at a slow speed, going pass a T junction, where I had to e-brake because the cab had made a dash of a turn just before my eyes. If I had not stopped the car into him, I would have had an accident and during my first lesson too! Hubb had 2 near mishaps yesterday too. One where he was driving at a much faster (than me) and steady speed, and this stationary car suddenly turned and cut into his lane. Hubb had to swerve the car to the right and thank God, there wasn't any car on his right. The driver was a lady with a toddler or small child in the car! It's very rash and irresponsible of the driver.

Everyone ought to be careful with the amount of good food intakes and drive safely on road. Amen.

Last night I went again to PS Cafe with my hubby and colleagues. N is leaving for London next week. Since I have mentioned about the cafe to her more than a couple of times and now she's leaving Singapore to somewhere not known for food, she must at least have visited this place once. I have a good mind to suggest to boss to throw the company function there next time. The whole place can accmmodate 100 of us.

So we went. They all love the place, its ambience, the food and especially the desserts. :) If you haven't been there, it has an idyllic and romantic setting. I raved about how un-Singapore vibe that the place gave me. I had meant to keep it a secret from hubb, so that I can surprise him of the place during one of our anniversary celebration. I like to gloat to him on the special places I find. ;)

Of the few times I have patronised this place, I have tried the flamed prawn pasta, beef ragout, steak and prawn, and 1/2 of the steak sandwich. The beef ragout dish was a tad rich for me, but I have nothing to complain about the food. The double chocolate cake dessert was really heavenly with just the nice combi of bitter-sweet chocolate and nice fluffy. We also had coconut/grape/pear tart (how unusual!) and the apple and fig cake (yummy). The service was so-so last night. Good that I don't have any touchy-freely waiter this time. It was packed as usual, and the waiters were kinda overwhelmed. I have read mixed reviews about the food and the service. Must be my standard is not high enough, but I don't care, as long as I have enjoyed myself with my company. :D I wanna go back again soon!

Here's a picture that I stolen from Anny on our first ever visit to the place. It's the heavenly double chocolate cake.

PS Cafe- Doub choc cake