Weekend Ramblings

Despite, being a little under the weather and having a slight stomach bug that has literally been bugging me for the past week, it didn’t stop me from catching up with friends and indulging over the weekend… oops~

Friday night after my weekly dinner with my dad and listening to all the little random things and facts of life that he likes to tell me (it’s actually very interesting!) I met up with K for a looong overdue visit at Sift. Oh Sift chocolate cake how I missed you soooo much~ It was like greeting an old friend… except you don’t dig your fork in your friend and savour the smooth chocolate mousse gliding over your tongue.. haha yes getting *slightly* inappropriate here… The cake layers inside were a little dry, and the overall package was a lot sweeter than I remembered, but it did satisfy my craving.

Sift Chocolate Cake~

K had her usual chocolate pavola despite being sick, and she definitely enjoyed it judging by the speed she demolished the crisp chocolate meringue topped with a dollop of cream and strawberries.

Chocolate Pavlova with strawberry champagne jelly

Saturday afternoon I met up with C for a girly movie outing~ Snow White and the huntsman. The movie portrayed a more sinister aspect of the fairy tale, and rather than fall in love with who was supposed to be the ‘prince’ in the movie, the rugged huntsman was the one who broke the poisoned apple’s spell with his true kiss. The movie I guess was not too bad, but all things are made better when you have caramel popcorn accompanying you throughout the movie~ Being brought up overseas, you can only ever get salty buttered popcorn, but the caramel popcorn you can buy here definitely kicks it’s butt. Crunchy and sweet, so utterly addictive!

Dinner was at Classified up in Exchange Square. Classified is one of my favourite places for a relaxed brunch or casual dinner. If you are a cheese fan, this place is definitely a must try for you as they host a large variety of different cheeses. Their melted Camembert is to-die-for. One small whole Camembert is topped with thyme and truffles then baked in an oven. It is then served aside pieces of toasted poppyseed and sesame bread. Oh the joy when you dig your knife into the melted centre and scoop out the melty, oozy innards of the soft cheese onto your bread… *mmm*.

Baked Camembert~

So of course we ordered the Camembert and to seem a little healthy we added a chicken and bacon avocado salad without the bacon. Yes, I admit I don’t like bacon, the sight and smell of the fat on the rind really puts me off. I was already mentally thinking that I would pick off all the bacon as I assumed C like most people would like bacon. So I was actually surprised when she said she didn’t like bacon and we both started laughing as neither of us really wanted to mention it in case the other person liked it. Luckily she did~

Dessert was as return visit to Sift. Haha, yes I know I only just went there on Friday night, but who says I can’t try different things. And so we had the lemon trio and sticky toffee pudding. The lemon trio was very yellow in presentation (well no surprise there). A long platter with a martini glass of floating meringue in lemon curd, one perfectly made lemon macaron and a small lemon tart. The lemon curd in the tart was delightfully tangy without being overly sour. The biscuit base still had a slight firmness to it, but I would prefer it to be thicker so there is more bite to it. I didn’t really enjoy the meringue as it had a funny taste and it had an odd texture, sort of like hard foam.

Lemon Trio

The sticky toffee pudding is similar to a sticky date pudding, where the cake part comes in a slice. We were served quite a generous piece with the buttery toffee sauce drizzled over it and topped with a quenelle of vanilla ice-cream.~

Sunday I had a booking for the 3 michellin star yum cha Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons. It takes a month to make a booking so I was quite looking forward to it since I hadn’t been in a while. Originally I was planning on a yum cha for one. Yes, for one. When I tell people that I have yum cha alone, it always comes with the standard funny look and ‘huh? how can you have yum cha for one’? It’s easy, make a booking, sit down at the table, order your tea and dim sum, food comes, pick up chopsticks, eat. Ta-dah~ easy as pie.

Yes, I know people aren’t referring to the actual process of yum cha. I guess what they can’t fathom is the breaking of tradition. Yum cha generally in people’s minds is where a gathering of family members, or friends, or an amount of persons greater than one, sits down together, order a lot of food together and make loud, gossipy conversations with each other about their happenings over the week. They don’t see yum cha as a solo activity. For me, eating alone doesn’t bother me at all. I know some people who detest sitting at a restaurant alone. They usually eat at a faster than normal pace which is sad as it means they don’t actually enjoy their food, or rather not eat out at all. I think that being able to eat alone means that you are able to enjoy the company of yourself. Sometimes all you want is to just have a little alone time, be a part of the noise and ambience in the restaurant and to focus on the food. I have discovered that eating alone, you also recieve more attentive service from the staff which to me is a positive aspect.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived that my booking for two (I normally make a booking for two even though only I show up because I want to be seated at a bigger table :p) became a booking for 3 as C and her fiance R came to join me since I had mentioned to her the previous night that I was lunching at Lung King Heen. More people meant that more things were ordered which made a happier me 😀 We had the prawn dumplings, assorted mushroom dumplings, bbq and mustard greens cheong fun, their signature abalone pastries, baked BBQ buns with fermented bean curd, veggies (yeen choi) in broth and fried egg noodles. As usual, the ingredients used was top notch as expected form a 3 star establishment and you could see the care taken by the chef from the presentation of the delicate dim sum. The skin of the dumplings were translucent, and had a slight chewy texture. The prawns were fresh and the mushrooms had a meaty bite to it.

Har Gao

Assorted mushroom dumplings with celery

The cheong fun was good, soft rice roll noodles encasing tender pork pieces.

BBQ Pork and mustard greens cheong fun

Their abalones pastries are heavenly, a mixture of sweet and savoury. The abalone, braised in soy sauce was very tender and the shortbread like pastry holding the diced chicken melted in the mouth, leaving a buttery, sweet flavour on the tongue.

Abalone pastries~ 😀

The baked BBQ buns were decent, soft BBQ pork encased in a soft bun. I prefer their pineapple BBQ pork buns more with the sweet, crunchy crust, but they weren’t on the menu that day.

Bake BBQ Pork buns with fermented bean curd

 The veggies were very tender, using all the baby shoots of the yeen choi, but the noodles were just normal, nothing really special. For dessert, we had the custard pastries which came four to a serve. I think they use quite a lot of butter in the pastry as the sweet smell wafted towards me even as it was placed on the table. The pastry was quite similar to the one used for the abalone pastry and the sweet custard filling was very rich and fragrant.

Custard Pastries~

 Petite fours were coconut and red bean pudding and what we call ‘ma zai’ which is fried dough that is puffed up and treacled together. I thought these were only so-so, nothing special. I have to say I did enjoy myself and I hope C and R enjoyed their yum cha experience there too~

Petite Fours