Making Rice Balls 5 October, 2011
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When Dear1 and Dear2 went on our Japan trip in 2008, we had triangular-shaped rice balls for breakfast in the business hotel on our first morning there. They came in various colors – green, red, purple, how weird. Wrapped with pickles within, or diced pickles all around, top with a steaming bowl of miso soup in the early morning, it was a fascinating morning meal for us both.
When we went to Taiwan earlier this year, while waiting for our pancake to be ready fresh, there were 2 other office ladies ordering rice balls on the other half of the road side stall. Hmm… We wondered what was it, so we ordered 1 ball to go as well. Hot and steaming, wrapped with some crunchy crackers and floss and a whole load other stuff in that gigantic rice ball, it was a surprisingly yummy breakfast for us.
One fine day, Dear1 had an idea to make rice balls for our own breakfast as well. A trip to NTUC and it seems that the short grain Japanese rice only comes in 2.5kg bag. No choice, I’ll just have to make lots of rice balls to eat. Buy some frozen fish finger fillet, 200g of pork floss from Bee Cheng Hiang, the medium hard type ones cos there were the soft fluffy ones, the very crispy ones, and the medium hard ones that was a nice in between. With 1 big pack of bite-sized seaweed left over from our Korea trip, we are ready to make rice balls!
First, oh, we gotto soak the washed rice for 30min before cooking. After cooking, we gotto leave it for a further 15min, hmm… Oven bake the fish fingers, prepare a piece of cling wrap over a rice bowl, lay some rice on it, top with the fish fingers and GENEROUS servings of the pork floss, cover with more rice, wrap the whole cling tightly, compact it nicely into a ball shape first, then shape it into a triangular one, finally remove from cling wrap and lay it on a piece of seaweed. Tata, we have a nice rice ball (or triangle)!
Ta-ta. A triangle riceball.
First attempt at making rice balls and I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Baby1 took a few bites too, and she seems to like it too. Some refinements needed though. Firstly, the rice has to be laid real thin without exposing the inner ingredients. Too much rice to ingredients ratio makes the ball a tad too plain for savours. Then, the pork floss has to be real generous. Again, the ball won’t taste nice if there’s too little ingredients within. Next, don’t make the ball too big. Too big means not easy to handle with all the stuff spilling out from within. Finally, remember to compact the rice real tight, otherwise the triangle won’t be able to stand up nice and proud.
Happy making rice balls, yum yum!
- Dear2
Pasta @ Olivevine, Suntec 10 September, 2011
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Dear1 and Dear2 had pasta at OliveVine – Pasta Fusion at Suntec over the Comex weekend, and in my humble opinion, the pasta is nice!!
We ordered a grilled fish with cream pasta at $8.90, and a chicken cutlet in spicy spaghetti, topped up $4 to add a large glass of iced lemon tea, a soup and a dessert of the day (which turns out to be warm carrot cake). Both the pasta were fantastic!!
On the cream pasta first. Lots of cream sauce, and 3 slices of grilled fish. A very hearty presentation all for just $8.90, not a bad deal at all.
The second dish was even more awesome. The fried chicken cutlet was of a decent big size, served with a generous serving of the spaghetti. What I loved most about the pasta was it’s spicy taste and the spaghetti strands cooked just to the right softness, exactly how I like my pasta, yummy!
No GST or service charge (though you have to place your orders at the counter yourself), located at the Roof Garden on level 3, I will definitely come back for seconds if not for the expensive parking at Suntec. Not to mention the crowds here too, what a pity.
- Dear2
Hearty Breakfasts 26 July, 2011
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It’s very amazing how our natural body clock is so accurate. Unlike working adults who like to laze in bed on weekend mornings, our Baby1 wakes up at about 7 plus every morning, weekday or weekend, rain or shine. So on Saturdays and Sundays, we’ll bring her out to IMM, Jurong Point or Clementi Mall and have our breakfast.
MacBreakfast – No offer on weekends, so nope nope.
Long John Slivers – I hate the thick triangular bread though Dear1 finds them delicious. Nooooo…. I don’t want!!
Ya Kun – $1.50 per cup of small coffee, really expensive though it’s really nice. But I am not keen to spend $0.50 on 1 egg, or save just $0.10 for a set meal.
KFC Breakfast – The $2.50 porridge is nice, but by 11am, I’ll be hungry again. Dear1 tried 2 versions of the Twister Wrap and complimented that it’s nice.
Swensens Breakfast – Omelette, sausage, bakes tomato, hushbrown, bacon. Looks like very normal food to me wor. I can make that too!
BK Breakfast – By far both our favourite. I especially like the croissant-wich with ham. Baby1 likes the circular hushbrowns too, but they are really salty though.
Week after week, we’ll have our breakfast in IMM, Jurong Point or Clementi Mall, enjoying the early morning quiet in these malls before doing our grocery shopping. But one Sunday morning, I decided to make our own breakfast, saving that $10.
Fried some bacon, used the bacon’s oil to fry some hotdogs, and cook 2 sunny side ups each. Tata, we have a hearty homemade breakfast. Yummy!!
Our homemade wrap with Taiwan sausage.
Some weeks later, Dear1 bought some chapatti wraps from NTUC and suggested that we make our own version of The Wrap. Ok, in goes Taiwan sausage, chicken nuggets, cheese, French fries, and diced tomatoes. Not exactly the right combi. So it was chicken nuggets, cheese, ham, French fries, and diced tomatoes the next time. Yummy yummy!
It’s a lot of hassle to cook your own breakfast at home, but for a change, it might be more fun, saves money, and some room for creativity too.
- Dear2
Minced Pork Pasta with Cherry Tomato Sauce 15 July, 2011
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Homemade pasta – generous servings
One Sunday afternoon, I felt bored and sick to eat the usual outside hawker again for dinner later. And with left overs of 1 box cherry tomatoes, one thick stalk of cut broccoli stalk, half a peeled carrot – from the previous day’s Ieftovers of lunch, half a packet of yucky pasta from dunno since when, and some frozen peas, I decided to use all the ingredients to cook pasta. Went supermarket to get a packet of minced pork, and a bottle of tomato sauce, I am ready to cook dinner.
- Boil the pasta with the diced carrots, broccoli and peas in water with salt.
- Marinate the pork in soya sauce, lots of pepper and sugar.
- Cut the cherry tomatoes into really small bits. Stir fry the minced pork until almost cooked. Forgot that I need to cook the cherry tomatoes sufficiently for it to ‘dissolve’, so hurriedly into the pan they went. Pour lots of tomato sauce in, and scooped heaps of sugar in. Cook until the tomatoes are really soft. Taste before serving.
- Drain the pasta mixture when it’s cooked.
- Mix the pasta with the pork tomato sauce.
Yummy!! It was a success!! Dear1 complimented that there was a certain taste that he liked. It’s likely the sugar he says. And he finished 2 big bowls of it. For someone who don’t like tomatoes, then how? “Cut too small liao, cannot tell, so it’s ok.” Hahahaha…
I love cooking. Especially when Dear1 or Baby1 likes it. Yummy!!
- Dear2
Why a $2 lunch makes my day 2 June, 2011
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It’s getting really hard to buy food with $2 nowadays. I remember some years ago (5-6yrs?), it was still possible to find decent food at hawkers for $2. Nowadays, it is almost impossible. It’s really quite a daily pocket pinch to have to fork out a green ($5) or red ($10) note just for a simple lunch.
Several reasons contributed to the gradual disappearance of cheap food. First is the rate of inflation in recent years. Food prices and oil prices have been on the raise. Second, which I think is the more important reason, is the local upgrading program. Most people should have noticed that once a hawker centre is “upgraded”, the food will cost more there. This is because the rents of these stalls were increased as part of the “upgrade”. Then the stall owners will have to pass on the extra costs to the customers.
Personally, I would have preferred hawker centres to remain simple, safe and hygienic, and continue to serve cheap tasty food. And this is the reason why I preferred to take a 5 minute walk to the hawker centre across the road to buy my $2 lunch every day.
Mixed vege rice @ 2 vege + 1 meat = $2 and the portion is pretty big – see how the food is overflowing the box.
A standard meal of 2 vege + 1 meat still sells for just $2, and no extra charges for taking away. This is so much cheaper than the $3.50 I have to pay for the same meal at the foodcourt in my office building. A simple calculation will reveal that I will save ($3.50-$2)x22days=$33 a month just like that!
My china colleagues prefer to eat at the foodcourt, I really don’t know why. Do they have too much money to spend? Do they prefer the air-con environment? Are they just lazy to walk?
Recently, I’ve stop lunching with them, for a few reasons. First, I really prefer the taste of hawker food. Somehow, hawker food taste so much better than the foodcourt. Second, of course is the cost. Third, I really have nothing I want to chit chat with them about. It’s really tiring when I have to stop every other sentence just to explain a local term that we use or translate parts of my sentence to mandarin.
I digressed.
Back to the topic. I’ve seen many mixed vege rice stalls secretly “increasing” their prices. Some will give a smaller and smaller serving of rice and dishes. Some will include slices of meat into their seemingly vegetable dishes so that now the dish will be charged as a meat. I’ll stopped patronizing such stalls as soon as I discover their dishonest ploy.
Luckily, this mixed vege rice stall near my workplace is still honest with their business. And for that, they’ve earned my loyalty. Good taste, good portion, and most of all, good price! I’ll rather spend the savings from lunch with my family instead.
-Dear1
p.s. also see my art of ordering vege rice. :P
Our little affair with Ichiban Sushi 16 March, 2011
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Food & Beverages, For Him For Her.2 comments
In Dear2′s last post, she mentioned eating out at Ichiban Sushi on our most recent date. That made me want to write a post about Ichiban Sushi. We have visited Ichiban Sushi on numerous occasions and have also mention it a few times on our blog. Why are we so infatuated with this restaurant?
Let’s take a short trip down memory lane.
One important contributing factor is its location. IMM became (and still is) our favourite haunt especially during the time when we just ROM-ed and were renovating our house. We frequented IMM because it housed a large number of interior designers, furniture shops, lighting shops, electrical shops, basically everything that we need to furnish our love nest.
Our love for IMM was further reinforced when we signed our bridal package with a studio also located in IMM. And so we visited IMM multiple more times to try out the gowns and suits, take photos, take final measurements, select photos, bargain photos, collect album, collect flowers, collect gown, return gown, ya.
Not to mention IMM is also just about 10 minutes from our house, so we also visited quite often just for leisure and to window shop.
I remember it was during one of our important anniversaries (Dear2 help, was it together? or wedding?), we went to IMM in search of a decent restaurant to celebrate the occasion. And so we chanced upon Ichiban Sushi on level 2 with a medium length queue outside. Let’s try it, we thought.
We were given this romantic little table for two by the nicely wall-papered wall, under a decorative feature arch, illuminated by a warm ball of light. I remember us chit chatting leisurely and just savoring our anniversary over dinner. It also helped that we both enjoyed the food (I remember ordering the a cold noodle and unagi bowl set) and found the pricing quite reasonable for the quality of the food, pretty good service and ambiance.
We were quite satisfied as we went to settle the bill. And this was when we got hooked. We were given this reward card where we can collect a stamp for every $20 spent. Since we enjoyed our experience at the restaurant, we thought that the reward card was a good idea and we can frequent this restaurant again to collect more stamps.
And we did.
The next time we visited was for a family birthday celebration. The second time round, the experience wasn’t so good. There were 5 of us, seated at a table for 4, making it rather squeeze-y. Also, Dear2 decided to try out their ramen promotion and it tasted rather bad. Nonetheless, we collected my stamps, so now, we were committed.
A sample of the latest reward card from Ichiban Sushi.
The nice thing about their stamp collect reward card is that the rewards were cumulative. I don’t have the card here and I don’t remember exactly, but roughly it works like this. After 3 stamps, we get to redeem a plate of squids or octopus, and we retain the card. After yet another 3 stamps, we get to redeem a higher level reward which is a plate of fried gyoza or something similar, and we retain the card. And so on. So we keep accumulating the stamps and get mini rewards along the way until we get to the final prize where we can trade in the reward card for a $20 voucher or similar.
So for the next few months, we frequented Ichiban Sushi to collect stamps and also to try out their variety on the menu. We did this mostly at IMM and also at Ang Mo Kio hub after attending Mrs Wong’s lessons. Eventually, we found other menu items that we liked. I liked that curry rice in particular, and Dear2 is generally happy with the rice bowls (don) and hot pots. One difficulty that we faced was optimizing our bill to collect the stamps. It was difficult to order 2 portions of adult food for exactly $20 but we also felt that it was too expensive to spend $40 for 2 adults. We did both. We tend to eat small portions that totaled to exactly $20 and topped up our tummies with finger snacks from Old Chang Kee and such. And we ate exactly $40 by ordering larger bento sets and had a sumptuous dinner just once.
There was also an expiry date for the reward card so we also found ourselves visiting the restaurant more often than necessary and that contributed to a larger fall in marginal utility.
Eventually, we redeemed our reward card and vowed to never take the reward card again. It’s not that we don’t like the restaurant, just that we don’t want to commit to the reward system. The main draw of a restaurant should be the food, service and ambiance.
So now, we simply pay using our CapitaMall Card at IMM and collect the 5.3% rebates. And we’re not restricted to spending in multiples of $20. At least I find that with the newfound freedom, I enjoyed the restaurant more this way.
Ichiban Sushi has a special place in our hearts because of the memories we’ve created there, both the celebrations and the mad rush for reward stamps. Will we visit again? Definitely. Not compelled to, but because we want to.
-Dear1
Milo Dinosaur @ Work 12 November, 2010
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Haven’t been writing anything recently, not in the mood for my usual long posts. Isn’t really in the best of mood. Why? I dunno. Maybe I’ve moved on to the third stage of culture shock since I started working. Maybe Dear2 and I are mutually affecting each other with our dull mood and we are both down spiraling together in the vicious cycle. Sigh… Whatever, but like Dear2 says, from now on, See more good, See half full, Cheers!
So this is me having fun on a Friday afternoon at work in between doing up my powerpoint presentation. I made my own Milo Dinosaur from the Nescafe machine that dispenses milo (2 servings worth) and a sachet of milo from the recreational room upstairs. Took the picture with my Omnia 2. :D
My Milo Dinosaur~ Roar~
Hopefully, this short post will jump start my writing engine again. Vroom!
*sip* *sip*
-Dear1
Ikan Bilis Powder 29 September, 2010
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1.5 hours. 3 tablespoons of ikan bilis powder. That’s what I got.
Ikan bilis powder!
Baby1 is going to turn 8 months soon, and she’ll be able to eat more lumpier foods and more variety of meats starting with fish first. Granny and Ah Gong are already vying to buy fish for her once mummy lifts the ‘cannot eat porridge yet’ ban. Alas, but have you ever tried eating porridge with no seasonings added? Sure, the porridge can still taste nice if you have a greater than one portion of ingredients (pork/ fish/ potato/ carrots/ spinach/ etc) to porridge ratio. But what to do if these are so troublesome and expensive to prepare? So, mummy got down to making the ikan bilis powder so that these can be used as ‘seasoning’ for the otherwise bland porridge. (Actually, babies really no need such flavourful tastes. I know of mummies and nannies who throw in dried scallop ah, pork ribs ah, corn ah etc into just a bowl of baby porridge. Small wonder if the baby doesn’t grow up to be a fussy eater with stronger taste buds…)
Ok, here goes the ‘recipe’ for the ikan bilis powder:
I bought 100g of dried ikan bilis from the neighborhood medicinal hall @ $1.20. Heads and internals removed please. Bring home, use half of that 100g in case the ‘experiment’ fails, wash multiple times with water to remove the saltiness (how else you think dried stuff remains preserved for so long? Salt lah!!). ‘Stir fry’ the ikan bilis using no oil, lowest heat. That took about 25 mins of continuous flipping of the fishes so that they don’t get burnt. You know it’s ready when the fishes finally becomes hard again. Grind them in a grinder. Sieve through. Re-grind those that were too big to go through the sieve. Sieve again. And tata, you have some yummy ikan bilis powder to be ready to throw in baby’s porridge for that added taste and calcium, or you can throw that into your adult porridge or soup as well. Slurp..
Dear2 has long been wanting to make ikan bilis powder for a long long time ago. There was once during the famous Korean show, Da Chang Jin, Chang Jin set a challenge against a visiting foreign minister who was ill. This minister had strong taste buds, but refused to eat the less-than-delicious flavours of the world. No salt, no oil, less meats etc, just vege and vege and vege, yet Chang Jin was able to cook heavenly meals for the minister for an entire month such that his condition improved greatly. The trick? You guessed it, ikan bilis powder!!
It’s really a lot of work to do, that continuous flipping so that the ikan bilis don’t get charred, and that sieve sieve sieve, but if Baby1 likes it, it’s well worth the effort. For now, let’s get Baby1 to try out the taste. :p
- Dear2
